Russian gaming business pays more than it should
According to the data of the Federal Treasury, the RF constituent territories have planned their revenues from gambling tax to be about 15.8 billion rubles. It is two times less than they collected in 2007. Confirming this reduction of proceeds, the regional authorities based on the fact that they new tough requirements to gambling operations (up to complete bans) adopted in 2007 would lead to a drop in the number of gambling facilities and, consequently, in the budget revenues. However, according to the Treasury`s report on observance of the RF consolidated budget, despite the purge, casino and slot hall owners keep paying the tax without fail. As of July 1st, 2008, the local budgets received 13.6 billion rubles, i.e. the annual plan has been almost achieved, and the amount of the annual proceeds may approach the last-year figure (31.5 billion rubles). The experts say that a possible reason of the performance over and above target is that the local authorities, within the market “purging” campaign, were closing smaller facilities which failed to pay taxes, and the tax rates were raised, in some cases, for the remaining operations. In addition, it is known that sometimes the owners of slot halls restricted in one region just moved to the neighbouring areas.
The coming elimination of the stable revenue source (due to the relocation of the business to the zones from July 1st, 2009) and the refusal of the Ministry of Finance to compensate these losses make some regions hone. The authorities of Tatarstan have already announced their intention to urge the State Duma to extend the list of the zones including “Kamskiye Polyany”, the zone operating in the republic, in it. And the administration of Primorie region has made an appeal to the regional Legislative Assembly to submit to the State Duma a bill on suspending the business relocations to the “reservations” till 2012.