On September 4th, the Committee on Budgets held an important debate on the future of the tax burden on gambling in the Czech Republic. The meeting was held in the meeting room of the Chamber of Deputies of the Parliament of the Czech Republic and, in addition to members of the Committee on Budgets, selected representatives of the public attended. Upon our request and following the vote of the MPs, selected representatives of the public could speak at the plenum of the Committee on Budgets. Jan Rehola had the opportunity to speak for the gambling sector as the director of the Institute for Gambling Regulation as well as Mr. Marek Herman, the director of our partner association APKURS. In his speech, he warned MPs about the unrealistic nature of the expected revenue from the taxation of players’ winnings when he informed that the maximum collection of gambling tax from fixed-odds betting will be CZK 26 million.
Result of today’s meeting on taxation of winnings:
Regarding the question of taxation of winnings, no common conviction about it being a good idea among MPs could be sensed. The bill has already been changed so that the gross winnings will not be taxed, only the net winnings will. In agreement with the MoF, an amendment will be introduced, as discussed by Deputy Minister Kouba, who will propose the taxation of income tax for all types of games (the player who is in the black in the calendar year in total) rather than the original withholding tax (each individual winning was supposed to be taxed). We further focus our efforts on increasing the limit from the current 100 thousand to more (500 thousand or 1 million).
Result of today’s meeting on taxation of operators:
ČSSD Amendments were announced at the meeting that will further differentiate tax rates. ČSSD proposed to raise the tax rate on technical games and to decrease it on lotteries, and the Pirates proposed to reduce it on fixed-odds betting and poker. Unfortunately, there is a debate now when the individual types are starting to point at each other and point out where there is room for raising taxes. This was exactly what happened in 2015 and caused today’s tax burden, which is high for all entities.
