South Africa: KwaZulu-Natal to raise gaming taxes

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The amended KwaZulu-Natal Gaming and Betting bill raises taxes across casino gaming, machines, bingo and fixed odds bets. The legislature in the South African province of KwaZulu-Natal has published an amendment that would raise gaming taxes across the sector.

The amended KwaZulu-Natal Gaming and Betting bill will raise the casino gaming tax, limited payout machine gaming tax, bingo gaming tax, as well as the betting tax on fixed odds bets on sporting events.

The casino gaming tax will have four rather than the current two bands. The tax will rise from 9.5 per cent to 9.85 per cent on gross gaming revenue up to SAR12m (€660,000) and from 9.5 per cent to 11.3 per cent on revenue from SAR12m to SAR30m.

The tax on SAR30m to SAR100m will remain at the current rate at 12.5 per cent, but revenue over SAR100m will now be taxed at a higher rate of 14.05 per cent.

Limited payout machine gaming will face a tax rate of 15.25 per cent of GGR, which goes to the Provincial Revenue Fund. Bingo gaming will pay a maximum tax of R73.8m on revenue of SAR1bn and above.

Fixed-odds betting on sports would see a tax rate of 6 per cent – 3 per cent going to the Provincial Revenue Fund, 1 per cent to the Transformation Fund, 1.6 per cent to category 1 operators and 0.2 per cent to category 2 and 3 operators.

Tax revenue from horseracing would be paid to other categories of licensed operators other than the operator Gold Circle alone.

Category 1 licensed racecourse operators, which run thoroughbred horseracing, would receive 1.6 per cent. Category 2 harness racing operators and category 3 standardbred racing operators would receive 0.2 per cent each.

The secretary of the KwaZulu-Natal Legislature, Letho Sibiya, said the tax rates had not been revised for many years and that the legislature doesn’t expect any objection to the changes.

Source: focusgn.com