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Gibraltar: Offshore Bookies And Taxmen To Discuss Repatriation To Britain Of Gaming Firms

Panorama

10 January 2001

This story is reproduced by kind permission of Panorama at http://www.panorama.gi

Offshore bookies and taxman to discuss repatriation back to Britain of gaming firms

British bookmakers who have moved offshore are to have talks with Customs & Excise in an attempt to agree a package of measures ensuring they head home in the event of betting duty being abolished or revamped.

ASSURANCES
Customs is seeking assurances of the extent to which the jobs might be created in Britain if firms such as Ladbrokes, Stanley, William Hill and Victor Chandler repatriated their internet, credit and telephone betting operations.

The Racing Post gives as examples Ladbrokes move to Gibraltar and Hills to Antigua because of the ability to trade tax-free from those destinations, but they kept up a persistent lobby to the British Government for a reduction in betting duty.

DEAL
Last month, Chancellor Gordon Brown pledged a better deal for punters with the strongest hint yet that duty could be reduced, or abolished in favour of another form of taxation.

Also last month, a report from parliamentary watchdog the Public Accounts Committee stated that the estimated loss of revenue from telephone betting business that had switched to tax-free offshore services amounted to £15m - 20m a year.

The Levy Board's Bookmakers' Committee has met to discuss its dialogue with Customs, and chairman Warwick Bartlett outlined the benefits to both parties of making progress.

He said: "We want to agree a package of measures to make the UK the centre of global g-commerce (gambling). We think there is an opportunity to increase both jobs and revenue. There is a pent-up demand for people to bet with British bookmakers, like buying Italian clothes or French perfume, because of its unrivalled integrity."

FAVOURED
Bartlett said the committee favoured a system of tax on gross profits-and no deductions to punters-in place of lower betting duty, but had held back from offering estimates of the jobs and revenue that could flow to Britain through repatriation of offshore businesses.

In his New Year message last week, Chief Minister Peter Caruana said that "the gaming industry continues its successful consolidation as an important part of our economy."

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