'They should pay their fair share' - chancellor Rachel Reeves signals gambling taxes set to rise

Chancellor of the exchequer Rachel Reeves signalled on Monday that gambling taxes will be increased in the budget she delivers on November 26, stating the government would make sure the industry paid its "fair share".

The Treasury has been consulting on plans to harmonise online gambling duties, a move which British racing has warned could wipe £66 million from the sport's income in its first year. Those fears prompted the BHA's 'Axe the Racing Tax' campaign, which included the sport taking the unprecedented step of voluntarily choosing not to race on September 10, the day racing's trainers, jockeys and officials took its fight to Westminster.

However, campaigners including former prime minister Gordon Brown have called for more far-reaching increases to gambling taxation, including major hikes to gaming duties for both online and land-based firms that bookmakers have claimed could wipe out the betting shop sector.

Reeves, speaking at the Labour Party conference in Liverpool, said to ITV: "I'm the chancellor who set up the review of gambling taxes. No other chancellor has done that, because I do think there's a case for gambling firms paying more.

"I talk to a number of businesses from all sectors of the economy including the gaming sector. On a personal level I have never bet in my life on anything, but they make an important contribution to the economy.

"But they should pay their fair share of taxes and we will make sure that happens."

Earlier in the day the gambling minister Baroness Fiona Twycross had said the government must weigh up the risk of fuelling the black market and the threat to jobs when considering gambling tax rises.

She was speaking at an event organised by the Social Market Foundation (SMF) think tank which, along with the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR), has called for the government to introduce major hikes in gambling taxes in the budget.

Brown and more than 100 Labour MPs have cited the IPPR report as they claimed the money raised could be used to lift children out of poverty. 

Minister for gambling Baroness Fiona Twycross

Twycross told the meeting that it was "perfectly reasonable" for the government to tackle child poverty and look at gambling tax reform.

However, she added: "I'm not convinced we should be putting them in the same pot where you get a very easy answer to what is actually a very complex issue.

"I know many of you in the room will disagree with the sector when they talk about the risk of the black market but actually these are real risks that we have to take in the round.

"We have to look at what the implications are of raising taxes, and what level of taxes is a safe level to raise them to, where you won't push consumers into the black market."

Twycross said the Treasury had to "work through all the implications, including on jobs".

She added: "I appreciate that there is a relatively low number of jobs in online betting companies but they are concentrated in regional areas.

"The impact on the community of Stoke, for example, where bet365 is based; we also have to take into account what the impact on a community like that would be if you drove those jobs out through higher taxation."

The Demos think tank became the latest group to propose a rise in gambling taxes on Monday as one of eight "popular, pragmatic, pro-growth tax reforms to plug the fiscal hole".

Demos echoed the IPPR's proposals, adding that one of the wider benefits of a rise in duties would be that it would "discourage gambling".

Twycross also reiterated that the issue of gambling advertising remained in the government's sights.

"We can and we should tackle advertising," she said at the SMF event. "It is one of the challenges that I have set the sector."

Twycross added: "I have also been clear to the sector that if we don't see progress in terms of the proliferation of advertising we will look at how we can take more action from a government perspective."

Read these next:

Labour MPs call for gambling tax hike that could be 'death knell' for betting shops 

Claims that racing is working closely with anti-gambling lobby are 'simply inaccurate' says BHA 

Iain Duncan Smith: racing must be given 'careful consideration' in gambling tax reforms 

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