Proposal to increase taxes rejected in South Korea

A proposal aimed to double the gross gaming revenue tax in South Korea’s Jeju Island has been turned down by the national government in Seoul.

South Korea.- A proposal made by Jeju’s authorities to double the gross gaming revenue (GGR) tax from 10 percent to 20 percent in the island has been rejected by the national government in Seoul. In addition, Jeju’s government wants to implement “three-year license renewal audits” and to impose restrictions on the transferability of casinos licenses.

However, even Jeju Island may be considered a self-governing province and therefore able to run its own casino-related development programs, it still needs to get approval from the national government in Seoul on certain policy matters such as modifying tax rates.

“We believe that the national government quite possibly rejected the call for higher taxes in Jeju as it does not want to scare off billions of dollars of integrated resort-related capital either already under construction or moving towards construction,” said Grant Govertsen, Union Gaming analyst, adding that the rejected gaming policy is “good news” for Genting Singapore “as it moves forward with construction of Resorts World Jeju. [The rejection] is also good news for other pipeline projects in Jeju. Finally, the eight incumbent casinos benefit from this ruling, including Bloomberry’s Jeju Sun casino.”

Currently, the first phase of the US$1.8 billion Resorts World Jeju is expected to open in 2017. Another project for South Korea’s holiday island is Lotte Tour Development’s foreigner-only Dream Tower, which is scheduled to open in the second half of 2018.