Macau expects to collect US$6bn in gaming taxes
Full year forecast for casino taxes halved due to the negative impact of the Covid-19 outbreak.
Macau.- The government expects to collect MOP49.98 billion (US$6.26billion) in taxes from the city’s gaming industry this year.
The forecast comes from a revised budget for the financial-year 2020, published by the Financial Services Bureau.
The budget includes MOP45.50billion in direct tax on the city’s casino gross gaming revenue (GGR) but that figure is half of what the government had originally estimated.
The Macau government collected just over MOP18.48billion (US$2.3billion) in tax revenue from the city’s gaming industry in the first three months of the year, down 37.6 per cent compared with the same period last year.
Macau authorities estimate casino GGR for the full year to be MOP130billion (US$16.2billion), half the previous forecasts, due to the negative impact of the Covid-19 pandemic.
The government taxes casino GGR at a rate of 35 per cent, but other levies on casino gaming gross raise the tax rate to 39 per cent.
Other taxes on the Macau gambling sector include levies on the income of Chinese traditional lotteries, on horse racing and instant lotteries, and tax on commissions earned by operators of gambling junkets.
