British Taxes So High They Wound The Gambling Golden Goose
Great Britain's stance on gambling has wavered back and forth over the past several months. Even as acceptance of online casinos became the country's policy, complete with the White List for advertisers and licensing for offshore gaming operations, Gordon Brown hit the industry with extremely high taxes as his last act as Chancellor of the Exchequer, and then shot down the supercasino plan as Prime Minister.
So the United Kingdom has a vital gaming industry, but growth has been stagnated by the government's greed. Bookmaker William Hill says it's time to loosen the tax situation, as the company suffered a 10% drop in profits for the first half of the year.
Hill representatives pointed out the value of a healthy gambling community to the nation, noting Hill paid over $520 million in taxes last year, and provides jobs for 14,000 people.
A big part of the complaint is against Brown's taxing gross revenues of British-based online casinos 15%, a fee not faced by offshore competition licensed elsewhere. This puts British gambling sites at a large competitive disadvantage.
Under Tony Blair, the government had set goals to become the worldwide leader in Internet commerce, and therefore to establish guidelines which would draw online businesses to locate in Britain.
However, much of Brown's decisions have been seen as flip-flopping on gambling; the state loves the income, but acts as if the source were undesirable. Now, Brown is himself in danger of losing his position, and gambling forces are asking that they be treated as any other contributing industry, with encouragements to growth and relief from overbearing taxation. Britain has wounded the golden goose; it certainly doesn't want to kill it.
