Member of Parliament Hayk Sargsyan has introduced legislation to impose an additional 10% turnover tax on the gambling industry.
The lawmaker said the volume of gambling businesses, including the betting sector, has sharply increased over the last 13 years. He made this statement while speaking at the recent plenary session of parliament.
Sargsyan said that in 2010, the gambling turnover was $35 million, with a tax ratio of $2.6 million or 7.2%. However, between 2010 and 2023, the volume grew more than 440 times. By 2023, it reached $15.8 billion, while collected taxes were only $67 million, just 0.4% of the total turnover.
According to the MP, a series of legislative initiatives introduced in recent years aimed at reducing gambling volumes have failed to achieve their goal.
MP added that in 2019, the law banned betting activities in offices. Gamblers moved to online platforms, where they began spending a hundred times more money. Meanwhile, the betting industry reduced costs on office maintenance, salaries, and taxes. In 2019, the law banned the advertisement of bookmaking activities. This step also cut the millions of dollars in expenses by the bookmaking companies int terms of taxes and duties. MP emphasizes that this step let the current industry to maintain an absolute monopoly.
According to him, the legislative initiatives for increasing taxes in the industry haven’t been sufficient.
He cited international experience of at least 10% turnover taxes in the sector.
Sargsyan said that the Prime Minister has expressed support for his initiative.
MP added that some of their colleagues at the government and parliament had disapproved this bill, saying that at this phase the increase of the tax burden would be inappropriate. They held a series of meetings with government colleagues and met twice with Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan. The Prime Minister supported the initiative to increase the tax burden on gambling and betting activities. He proposed that the changes take effect immediately after the bill’s adoption, rather than after six months.
