Macau gaming tax revenue tops US$8.3bln to July, up 2.3pct

Aug 15, 2019 Newsdesk Latest News, Macau, Top of the deck  

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The government of Macau says it collected MOP67.21 billion (US$8.32 billion) in tax revenue from the city’s gaming industry in the first seven months this year. The tax revenue collected from the gaming sector is up nearly 2.3 percent so far this year compared to the MOP65.72 billion collected in the prior-year period.

The government’s Financial Services Bureau releases the data to indicate the general health of the city’s coffers. The figures published on Thursday show the sum collected so far this year is 68.4 percent of the amount of tax revenue from the gaming industry the government has budgeted for the whole year. The government forecasts it will collect about MOP98.23 billion this year from the gaming sector.

The latest data indicated that revenue from gaming collected so far in the calendar year accounted for about 89.8 percent of the MOP74.81 billion the government collected from all sources.

Government current revenue from all sources so far this year is 65.1 percent of the amount budgeted for over the course of the whole year.

The government taxes the gross gaming revenue of Macau casinos at a rate of 35 percent, but other levies on casino gaming raise the tax rate to 39 percent, in effect. Taxes on the Macau gaming industry also include levies on the income of Chinese traditional lotteries, horseracing, instant lotteries and tax on commissions earned by operators of gambling junkets.

In calculating its budget, the government tends to be conservative about estimating the amount of revenue it gets from gaming. The government has budgeted for a fiscal surplus of more than MOP18.06 billion for the whole of 2019. At the end of July, its surplus was MOP35.60 billion, official figures indicate.

The Macau government ended 2018 with a fiscal surplus of MOP53.87 billion for the full year.

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