UK Avoids Gambling Tax Rises In Reeves’ Latest Budget
The Labour Party’s planned reforms of the gambling sector do not seem to include tax rises. Chancellor Rachel Reeves said little about the betting industry in her Budget, which was good news for the industry.
Tax Rates for Gambling Remain the Same
The UK government has ignored calls to increase taxes on the gambling industry, with the sector being left unaffected by this week’s Budget.
Think tanks had urged the Labour government to increase the levy on the sector, with the party’s pre-election manifesto having indicated that reform was on the cards.
Details of that planned legislation are yet to be revealed, and the Chancellor, Rachel Reeves, avoided the temptation to raise gambling taxes in Wednesday’s Budget.
While there was a package of £40 billion in tax rises, Labour will not be increasing the levies paid by gambling companies – at least not yet.
As a result, the UK’s current tax rate of 21% for remote gambling duties remains. Land-based gaming at casinos, for instance, will still be subject to a tiered threshold between 15% and 50%.
IPPR And SMF Ignored
Economic think tanks had suggested the gambling industry as one sector where taxes could be increased to ease the burden on the UK’s under-pressure public finances.
The Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) was among those to tell Reeves to raise gambling taxes, suggesting that online casino games, slots, and sports betting were “high-risk gambling segments” and could have their tax rate doubled.
Proposals for even larger gambling industry tax rises had been suggested by the Social Market Foundation (SMF).
It said as much as £1 billion could be raised every year if the Treasury doubled the taxes paid on all online gambling activities from 21% to 42%.
The SMF cited research that showed more than half of Britons are currently in favour of increasing taxes on online gambling.
BGC Welcomes Labour’s Budget
Reeves’ Budget announcement got a warm backing from industry standards body the Betting and Gaming Council (BGC).
In a statement made following the Chancellor’s address to Parliament, the BGC chief executive Grainne Hurst said the organisation was in favour of holding gambling taxes at the same level.
She said: “We have been clear, any duty rises now would have hit customers, prevented growth, risked jobs and bolstered the unsafe, unregulated gambling black market.
“The government has listened to the BGC and our members, got the balance right, and rejected calls from anti-gambling prohibitionists seeking to threaten jobs and growth.”
Labour’s Budget was the party’s first for almost 15 years, with the Conservatives having been in government for a long period.
