South Africa’s government is on a collision course with the gambling industry after plans were unveiled to tax operators to the hilt.
The plans coincided with the government also announcing that another thing that’s really rather fun, alcohol, will also see a rise in the duty that drinkers have to pay on it.
From April this year, lotto, horseracing and soccer pools winnings are among those coming under the new tax rules.
Under the new guidelines, Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan made the decision that all winnings above R25,000, including those won on the National Lottery, will be subject to a final 15% withholding tax.
Gordhan’s hoping that this move will help discourage excessive gambling and that there will be quite the fight amongst those in parliament.
“Despite the obvious merits of this argument, I expect vigorous debate during the parliamentary process,” he said.
This is the latest move by the South African administration to combat gambling after banning Internet gambling in August. If you add this and the fact that gambling advertising in the daytime is also banned then you can see that there’s quite the pattern going on.
Since the World Cup, an event that will have earned the South African government a cart load of R’s, there has been a crackdown on gambling and this isn’t likely to be anywhere near the last that we hear of the anti-gambling plans.
Unfortunately for the government, people just aren’t taking heed of any of this. As we reported earlier this month, the amount of people gambling online in the country is still rising despite restrictions being put in place.
