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Brown wins favor with bookies13 March 2001Last week, British Chancellor Gordon Brown abolished the much-reviled betting duty. Punters currently pay a 6.75 tax on each bet placed with a British betting The Chancellor will be in credit with the gambling industry for a long time to come, particularly independent bookmakers who have lost millions of pounds of business to tax-free, offshore rivals such as Gibraltar-based Victor Chandler. Brown also earns the gratitude of the big bookies, which have been forced to add costly overseas operations to remain competitive. Today''s announced policy change, will replace betting duty with a 15 percent company tax on bookmakers'' gross profits in place of the 9% betting duty and levy. In return, the four biggest bookies - Coral, Ladbroke, Stanley Leisure and William Hill - have promised to repatriate their offshore tax-free operations and write off estimated costs of a total £20 million. The Treasury expects the policy to be in place by January 2002. |