TIRANA, May 24 – Gambling businesses are paying less in taxes and a late 2013 nationwide campaign to curb widespread informality in the sector seems to have now been forgotten although having a positive effect for 2014.
Gambling companies ranging from electronic casinos to thousands of sports betting shops paid about 4.52 billion lek (€35.5 mln) in taxes in 2016, down 16 percent or €6.5 mln compared to 2014 when the government collected a record 5.35 billion lek (€42 million) triggered by a nationwide late 2013 campaign dubbed “The end of madness,” Top Channel TV reports citing data obtained by the tax administration.
The lower collection rate is also related to huge debts gambling businesses owe to the tax administration.
Despite booming income and high profit rates, two sports betting companies and Albania’s sole casino were among the top debtor companies owing the tax administration a total of 1.5 billion lek (about €12 mln) at the end of 2016, according to data by the Supreme State Audit.
Albanians are reported to have spent about 15.2 billion lek (€120 mln) in electronic casinos and booming sports betting shops in 2016, up 15 percent compared to 2015, according to data obtained by Monitor magazine. The amount is equal to about 1 percent of the country’s GDP and is considered too high for Albania where similarly to other regional countries, GDP per capita and consumption rates are at only about a third of the EU average.
In a report on inspections carried out in the first half of 2017, the Supreme State Audit said it identified about 50 billion lek (€375 million) in income that state authorities failed to collect from 2014 to 2016. The revenue miss is related to the Gambling Supervisory Authority’s failure to impose and collect fines following seizure of games of chance equipment, often operated informally or not meeting technical requirements.
In late 2016, the ruling Socialist Party-majority approved a two-year extension to a law disciplining gambling in downtown areas, citing concerns over gambling businesses not being ready to move to tourist attractions, the possible spread of illegal gambling and the state budget losing millions of euros in taxes, in a move which came following apparent successful lobbying by the lucrative gambling industry. The law, initially scheduled to come into force in January 2017, will now be implemented starting 2019 unless a new extension takes place.
Albanian authorities have selected an Austrian-Polish-Albanian concessionaire to set up, operate and maintain an online central monitoring system on Albania’s gambling industry for the next 30 years.
The government says the concession is aimed at preventing tax evasion and money laundering in the industry which employs about 1,800 people and generates an annual $125 million in turnover.
