The Macau government collected approximately MOP3.27 billion (US$408 million) in tax revenue from the gaming industry in August this year, up by 27.7 percent from MOP2.56 billion collected in July, according to the latest information announced by the city’s Financial Services Bureau.
Judged year-on-year, the August gaming tax take was up 433.2 percent, although the year-on-year comparison was distorted by the severe decline during 2020 in visitor numbers to Macau associated with Covid-19 pandemic.
For the first eight months of this year, the Macau government has collected approximately MOP25.47 billion in gaming tax, representing an increase of 11.7 percent when compared with the same period last year.
With August’s gaming tax take, the Macau government achieved 50.9 percent of the MOP50.01-billion that it had estimated to achieve for full-year 2021, according to its current budget plan.
But Macau’s Secretary for Economy and Finance, Lei Wai Nong, told local media last week that the government would “definitely” adjust its full-year forecast for casino gross gaming revenue (GGR), which would be included in a revised budget plan to be submitted to the Legislative Assembly later this year.
In July, the Macau government had said it was sticking to its 2021 GGR forecast of MOP130 billion. That was prior to Macau’s reports of local Covid-19 Delta variant infection cases in early August, which subsequently affected the city’s casino revenue for the whole month, according to Mr Lei’s remarks last week.
The government taxes the GGR of Macau casinos at a rate of 35 percent, but other levies on the casino gaming gross, raise the tax rate to 39 percent in effect.
Macau’s tax-take figures in a given calendar period, and the city’s casino GGR in such a time frame, are not directly comparable for a number of reasons. They include the fact that there is typically a delay between the point where GGR is recorded in Macau casino operations, and the point at which tax is registered by the Macau government as having been paid on such play.
