SA Government Proposes
Online Gambling Tax Bill
 November
19 - Last week South African Minister of Finance, Trevor Manuel,
released a Draft Interactive Gambling Tax Bill, a bill
that has been designed effectively to tax online gambling
operators that choose to offer their online gaming services to
South African online gamblers.
While this may not be seen as good news for the online gambling
operators, it is actually great news for online gamblers
themselves because it means the South African government
actively supports a legalised and regulated (hence taxable)
online gambling industry in the country.
This ultimately means a safer and more reputable online gambling
environment for South Africans. It follows the example of the
United Kingdom, which successfully legalised (and thus taxes)
online gambling a few years ago - to great fanfare from the
global online gambling community.
Here is the Draft Interactive Gambling Tax Bill in its
entirety:
The Minister of Finance today released the Draft Interactive
Gambling Tax Bill ('the Bill') for public comment. The
legislation gives effect to the taxation of interactive
gambling activities as provided for in the National Gambling
Amendment Bill.
The Bill provides for the imposition of a special tax on
interactive gambling activities. The tax will be imposed on
operators with an interactive gambling site in South Africa. The
tax base will fall upon gross gambling revenue (i.e. the net
inputs generated by an operator).
The National Gambling Amendment Bill was passed by the National Assembly on 16 May 2008. The initial National Gambling Act, 2004
(Act No. 7 of 2004) did not provide for legalised interactive
gambling in South Africa.
However, the National Gambling Amendment Bill (Section 88A),
allows for this form of gambling in South Africa in order to
ensure regulatory oversight of interactive gambling, as opposed
to it remaining in the hands of offshore jurisdictions, with
little or no protection for local consumers.
According to the National Gambling Amendment Bill, tax in
respect of interactive gambling activities is also to be imposed
in terms of appropriate legislation (i.e. the Draft Interactive
Gambling Tax Bill).
The Bill will be tabled in Parliament during the first half of
2009.
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