The government will wait until the end of 2014 to stop tax avoidance in the gambling industry – nearly three years after spotting the problem

Posted on February 7 2013

I noticed another exchange on tax avoidance in parliament yesterday, this one on gambling taxation, no doubt motivated by last week's report in The Independent in which I commented. It went as follows:

Catherine McKinnell (Newcastle upon Tyne North, Labour)

To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer with reference to his Budget Statement 2012, when he intends to bring forward legislative proposals to give effect to his announced changes to the taxation regime for remote gambling.

Sajid Javid (Bromsgrove, Conservative)

Implementation of the Government's reform to remote gambling taxation is planned for 1 December 2014. The Government will legislate for the reform in a future Finance Bill.

So, the government spotted the problem in early 2012 and by late 2014 they may take action.

In the meantime nearly a billion will be lost.

Why make haste when there's only a billion to lose after all?

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2 Responses

  1. Martin McLoone says:
    February 7 2013 at 3:02 pm

    I got this reply from a UKIP supporter on another site after I reposted your observation. How valid is the point he makes?

    ‘The reality is the problem of off-shore gambling within the UK was highlighted back in 2001, which is why the 2005 act partly came into being.

    The problem since is that off-shore gambling has increased expotentially and they nearly all exist in protected domains. The ‘white-list’ system of regulation was brought in and it’s on that basis that the tax regime is being expanded….the POC approach was disbanded as uninforcable so the white list licencing approach has to contend with bringing in a law and a regulatory enforcable system that can actually do what it’s intended, rather than just force on-shore UK tax paying companies to take more of their business off-shore to compete…

    So the answer to your question is the Civil Service said they couldn’t enact the legislation/action demand any quicker – good old public sector eh?’