The Chilean Superintendency of Casinos is overhauling its existing gaming laws to include online gaming in the newest addition to regulations that date back to 1812.
The government wants to be able to tap the thriving online industry. A starting point for the discussion is the Chilean Digital Services Tax (DST), which became part of the Chilean VAT Law in 2020.
This applies a 19 percent VAT tax to digital entertainment, cloud computing and advertising. Online gaming is not named but the Chilean Internal Revenue Service (IRS) assumes it applies as digital entertainment content. The IRS recently ruled that the tax rates that apply to brick and mortar casinos do not apply to gaming platforms.
The IRS has begun contacting operators and platforms to inform them that they need to register, declare and pay the VAT. The IRS has already published a list of foreign taxpayers that are included in this list of platforms that need to register.
At the same time a bill designed to “regulate the development of online gambling platforms” was recommended to Congress by the former president of Chile, Sebastián Piñera, shortly before he left office in March.
That bill would determine which regulator would oversee the platforms, require them to be licensed and create a taxation scheme for online gaming. It would tax it at 20 percent of the gross income of the betting platform, instead of VAT.
Incoming president, Gabriel Boric and Congress are not expected to address the bill for a while.
