Albanian president vetos gambling taxation reform
Uniform 15% tax rate on gross earnings dismissed as “harmful and not productive”
A bill proposing to replace Albania’s turnover tax with a unified 15% tax rate on operator gross earnings was vetoed by Albanian President llir Meta this week.
The bill, proposed by the Albanian Ministry of Finance, was introduced to help address the Albanian National Lottery’s downturn in profitability.
In an interview in the Tirana Times explaining the decision, Meta said: “The promotion of this business model through an easier tax regime has a negative effect on the state budget, is harmful and not productive at all for the Albanian economy, is not based on sustainable socio-economic arguments and does not guarantee a healthy development of the Albanian society,”
Meta later said the measure would only benefit gambling businesses, and as a result would be counter-productive to the Albanian government’s goal of discouraging gambling activities in the country.
Following the decision to veto the bill, the Ministry of Finance dismissed the presidents concerns about the so-called ‘easier’ tax regime for operators saying: “There is no change to the gambling law and no relaxation as far as gambling taxation is concerned, on the contrary there is unification for all gambling categories.
“If the changes vetoed by the president don’t become effective, then we will have differentiated treatment for a market operator that will continue to be taxed at 10 percent.”
Under current Albanian law, all forms of gambling are legal, however only online sports betting and slots-based gaming are currently licensed by the Albanian Ministry of Finance. Any unlicensed online operators found to be targeting Albanian citizens can be blacklisted with their respective websites being blocked by local internet service providers.
Albania established a small national lottery called Qendra Llotarive (QLL) in 1990. But in September 2012, the Austrian Lotteries was granted the license for the Albanian National Lottery by the Albanian Ministry of Finance.
Austrian egaming company Novomatic were later granted a 10-year licence to manage and operate the Albanian National lottery in 2016 following a successful tender process.