Several reports has been recently posted on possible change of UK tax regulation on offshore bingo companies.
As many of bingo sites are based outside of Britain taxes payed on bingo revenue is significantly lower than 20%. UK government official had been debating about a possible reform of which offshore companies would be obligated to pay tax as local businesses. “Taxing offshore operators is not a new idea but as coalition negotiations occurring, it might finally, go into legislation” an official stated.
Both consumers and operators of online bingo had been seriously concerned by this drastic taxing reform. Medium to small size bingo businesses might be in a difficult situation with a 20% taxing policy. Andy Lewis said the a majority of small bingo sites would not survive being so heavily taxed: “with a 20% tax I fail to see majority of bingo sites showing profit”. Tom Schapiro had criticized the reform: “economy climate should not affect taxing. If UK government is desperate to raise fund it should not tax import but rather encourage export”.
As taxing bingo operators, which based outside Britain, had been previously discussed but was to be announced as “not realistic from the billing aspect” , Government officials stated that they are looking into taxing bingo suppliers which advertise in UK and ban UK based credit cards in foreign based gambling sites.
A slight different debate is regarding banning credit cards in both gambling sites and gambling land based clubs, for UK citizens. As the problem of heavy gamblers is on a rise in the UK, regulators are looking into limiting or banning the use of any credit cards. “It is almost impossible to legislate such but we are determined to help the vulnerable spot of society” stated a lobbyist.
As for regulating some of the major issues the concern many UK players we do not see any intentions on this matter. We have spotted many problems of which bingo sites might mislead consumers in regarding of lack of deposit or size of bonuses. In addition a bingo site must be obligated to costumer privacy and secrecy of ones details. We at No deposit bingo sites would like to see officials referring to these subjects as well and not only to a bigger government budget which will limit consumer choice of bingo sites.