- DCMS) has submitted supplementary evidence arguing that the purpose of the UK’s proposed Place of Consumption (POC) tax is not to raise tax, but to protect consumers.
- Regulators in Gibraltar and Malta argue that the motivation for the new POC tax is to collect more revenue, not to protect gamblers.
- The new law can be introduced as early as April 2014.
The Permanent Secretary to the Department of Culture Media and Sport (DCMS) has submitted supplementary evidence arguing that the purpose of the UK’s proposed Place of Consumption (POC) tax is not to raise tax, but to protect consumers.
The UK has come under fire from the main European regulatory centers of Gibraltar and Malta which have argued that the motivation for the new POC tax is to collect more revenue, not to protect gamblers.
Under EU treaties, the increase of tax is not a sufficient reason for a Member State to create its own regulatory system; its justification must be to combat the risks of unlicensed gambling.
And the initial Impact Assessment of the proposed reform originally quoted DCMS as saying that “no specific public protection risks have yet arisen,”—making consumer protection a tough argument to sell.
However, upon review, Mr Stephens’ team discovered that the Impact Assessment instead read “no specific public protection issues have yet arisen”—so the Committee is now free to identify all the risks it needs to justify the new regulatory model.
“It is not the case that the licensing reforms are being pursued in order to generate tax income,” Mr Stephen’s writes in supplementary evidence, arguing that reform of remote gambling regulation “... is justified on its own merits for the public protection reasons given.”
“I’m sorry, but I’m not competent to speculate on the implications, in terms of EU law, if we were pursuing regulation purely for taxation reasons—because we aren’t,” he added.
