Online Poker Pleased France Will Revise Tax
Beginning in January 2010 the French government will start to regulate and tax online gambling. Online poker players have been watching the news closely as the proposed tax regulations in France come closer to reality. French authorities made a change last week in the way they are proposing to tax online poker, much to the relief of online casinos and poker rooms. The tax on online poker will go from 2% of player stakes, to 2% of the pots. The revision is in the wake of repeated calls for changes from the online poker industry, which claimed the 2% player stake tax would make games they offered uncompetitive.
Alexandre Dreyfus ChiliPoker's chief executive officer told EGRmagazine recently, "We are all very glad that we were consulted by the French government and that our views were taken seriously. Although the set up is not ideal - we want to be able to offer French players the possibility to play against players from other countries, especially for tournament games - the hope is that legislation will evolve with time," It is estimated that the French tax authorities will end up with about 30% of the revenue generated by the pots offered by the online poker industry. It is thought that the revisions will allow online poker bet operators to be more competitive and therefore raise the interest in the game in France, which in turn will return more taxes to the coffers of the government.
The European Online Poker Gaming Betting Association has been critical of the proposed French draft bill on online gambling poker regulations and in particular sportsbetting. In order to "preserve the integrity of sports" the French government has proposed that operators pay sport federations for the right to offer markets on their events. French Gaming and Betting law detractors such as the EGBA have positioned themselves as watchdogs for the new legislation and have said that the draft French law is in conflict with the EC Treaty and the European Court of Justice (ECJ) case law. They have described the proposed law as "problematic".
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