A 9 percent tax on casinos in Gauteng, South Africa, might be eliminated in favor of a new model designed to boost casino tax revenues.
Gauteng MEC for Finance and e-Government Barbara Creecy suggested the idea while presenting her R103 billion budget to the Provincial Legislature.
The province draws about 95 percent of its annual budget dollars from the national government, while gaming taxes and other provincial tax revenues only account for about 5 percent of the provincial budget, and Creecy wants to change that.
Her term in office expires in 2019, and she says she wants to boost provincial tax revenues to at least R5.6 billion by then. The money, she says, would go toward infrastructure improvements, such as building new schools to address the province’s rising population and social services demands.
The province currently grows by about 200,000 each year, and it’s reworking its casino gaming regulations in order to increase its revenue take.
Creecy says the new regulations will give the province a greater ability to grow its gaming tax revenues and annual budgets.
Gaming operations in the province currently pay a flat tax of 9 percent. Creecy wants larger casinos to pay more, and smaller casinos less, to increase overall gaming revenues and help to boost the gaming industry.
Among larger casinos Creecy said would pay more include Silver Star, Emerald, Carnival, Gold Reef, Morula, and Monte Casino.
