2024-02-10 10:05:12
Operators now pay an initial license fee and 20% on the difference between bets and winnings paid out
Since the beginning of this year, gambling operators have been taxed twice – once with a fee for their license and a second time with a percentage of the difference between bets collected and winnings paid out.
This was announced by the National Revenue Agency (NRA) following media publications about changes to the Gambling Act, adopted during the transitional provisions of this year’s budget.
Operators who want a license must pay a one-time payment of BGN 300,000. After that, they are taxed at 20% on the difference between the value of the bets received and the winnings paid out. Before these changes
had only 15% fee on the value of the made glands
for each game, tax officials remind.
The revenue agency emphasizes that a change definitely leads to a real increase in revenue and to equal and equal taxation of bets made in standard and online gambling with bets on sports events, horse and dog races and random events.
However, on Friday, ITN MPs saw that the change actually gave gambling a tax holiday. In a statement on behalf of the parliamentary group, they described the changes as lobbying.
According to Grozdan Karadjov, the changes were a jackpot for gambling companies. “In words, the rulers convince us that the fees for gambling activities are rising as absolute numbers, but in practice they sharply reduce the taxation of gambling, because they reduced the base on which these fees are imposed”, the deputy stated. According to him, after the changes, new betting points were opened in villages and palanquins. And he pointed out as an example that for just one issued license there are already more than 100 points opened.
The information was refuted by the NRA, according to which
no increase of requests for a license
for the organization of gambling after the changes.
Later on Friday, PP-DB’s Venko Sabrutev responded that the changes increase fees and taxes for gambling operators up to 4 times. And in the declaration of ITN there was a “lie” and “distortion”, because a fourfold increase in taxes and fees was circulated as a lobbyist reduction.
Sabrutev explained that until the end of 2023, gambling games, excluding online betting, paid 15% on the bets made. With the changes, there are now two payments, and besides
the organizers of gambling games already pay and corporate tax
Reducing the share of the illegal market, in addition to increasing budget revenues, is also a measure for better protection of gambling participants and prevention of addictions, Sabrutev emphasized. He added that in the Law on Corporate Income Tax, the gambling tax for a slot machine in a hall or for a gaming place is now BGN 800,000 per quarter.
A dispute in parliament caused the changed taxation of gambling. According to the NRA and PP MP Venko Sabrutev (left), this will lead to more revenue because the organizers already pay two fees and corporate tax.