Foreigners to face taxation at Japan casinos

Winning foreign players in Japanese casinos are set to be hit with an income tax bill before they leave the country.

Japan.- The Japanese government has extended the current Diet session until July 22nd in order to get the integrated resorts (IR) implementation bill discussed by the House of Councillors. However, some aspects of the legislation are still being discussed, such as the potential taxation on winnings for foreign players.

Gamblers coming to Japan from abroad are set to be included in the taxation regime proposed by the National Tax Agency, which intimated last month in Diet debate that Japan residents could face taxation on their casino winnings as “temporary income.” There’s still a lot of debate around this matter as it would depend on the bilateral tax treaty that each nation (from where the gambler comes from) has signed with Japan.

The approval of the tax is set to face serious challenges in the upper house due to the complexity of its implementation, as it would require the government to monitor the amount in winnings from visitors in order to apply the correspondent tax.

There’s still a month to debate the bill and prepare for the casino industry’s arrival in Japan after the Diet session extension, so there’s plenty of time to discuss taxation on foreigners’ winnings.