The Treasury Committee was yesterday told the Netherlands was not a viable example to show gambling tax hikes increase black market activity. <\/p>\n
Gambling tax hikes are\u00a0not a sufficient policy to address problem gambling, think tank IPPR economic policy expert Carsten Jung told the UK parliament\u2019s Treasury Committee on Tuesday<\/a>. \u00a0<\/p>\n During the committee session MPs heard from two panels of experts; the first included Jung who is acting interim associate director for economic policy and AI for the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR).\u00a0<\/p>\n The IPPR in August advised the government to increase remote gaming duty<\/a> from 21% to 50%, and machine games duty from 20% to 50% of operator profit, to raise an additional \u00a33 billion ($4 billion) in tax revenue per year.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cGaming machines and remote betting are fairly sort of sticky. You can raise the tax more and raise more money, but it also means not everyone will be deterred by higher rates or poorer odds,\u201d he told the committee. \u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cAnd therefore, on its own, I would argue it\u2019s not a sufficient policy to address problem gambling.\u201d \u00a0<\/p>\n Jung\u2019s points were made in response to comments from ex-industry stalwart and co-founder of Paddy Power Stewart Kenny. He\u00a0told the committee that \u201chigher-risk\u201d gambling offerings should be taxed more \u201cto disincentivise bookmakers from sucking [players] from\u00a0sportsbook into the online casino\u201d. \u00a0<\/p>\n Netherlands not a fair example in black market tax hike argument\u00a0<\/p>\n Responding to a question on the impact of gambling tax hikes on the black markets, Jung said the Netherlands was not a viable example for gambling tax increases contributing to black market growth. \u00a0<\/p>\n The market increased its gambling tax in January<\/a> as part of a staggered hike and, in August, reports suggested the rise would leave a \u20ac200 million black hole<\/a> in the budget as less tax revenue was being made overall in the market. \u00a0<\/p>\n In its most recent report on market activity, the market regulator (KSA) said that this year, for the first time, black market spending had outpaced regulated gambling spending. \u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThat is\u00a0an example that [the industry]\u00a0will use, but it\u2019s the only example they will use,\u201d Jung said. \u201cIn the Netherlands, not only did they introduce tax, they did a whole load of other regulatory changes as well, which we are not proposing.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Jung also pointed to very complex legal processes which would hinder black market enforcement in the market. \u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cFortunately, we don\u2019t have that in this country. We are much better and we\u2019re seen as world leaders when it comes to tackling this sort of black-market site,\u201d he added. \u00a0<\/p>\n He also used Estonia as an example to show there \u201cis no such correlation between the level of tax and the level of the black market\u201d. \u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cEstonia, lower tax, lower share of legal market. One of the problems we have in this area is that it\u2019s very hard to measure, because you\u2019re trying to measure something that\u2019s a criminal activity, so notoriously, it\u2019s always hard to measure,\u201d Jung added. \u00a0<\/p>\n Retail connected to online businesses \u00a0<\/p>\n In a second panel session, Betting and Gaming Council (BGC) CEO Grainne Hurst and BGC tax committee chair Stephen Hodgson answered the panel\u2019s questions on how a remote gambling tax hike would impact retail operations. \u00a0<\/p>\n In recent weeks several operators in the UK have warned they would close high-street betting shops in response to a potential tax hike in the UK. \u00a0<\/p>\n Hurst said companies operate as a single profit-and-loss model and therefore any impact to the online sector through increase remote gaming duty would inevitably impact their retail businesses. \u00a0<\/p>\n Operators would likely have to pull back investment from other parts of their business, she said. \u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Treasury Committee was yesterday told the Netherlands was not a viable example to show gambling tax hikes…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":250569,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[49,48,117117,84,117118,393,394,117119,117120],"class_list":{"0":"post-250568","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mental-health","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-carsten-jung","11":"tag-health","12":"tag-ippr","13":"tag-mental-health","14":"tag-mentalhealth","15":"tag-uk-parliament","16":"tag-uk-treasury-committee"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/250568","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=250568"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/250568\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/250569"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=250568"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=250568"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=250568"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}