Official figures indicate that the Macau government collected just over MOP48.36 billion (US$6.01 billion) in current-revenue terms from the local gaming industry in the first five months of 2019. The figure represented 49.2 percent of the sum it had budgeted to collect from gaming during the calendar year.
Data posted online on Wednesday by the government showed that current revenue from all sources amounted to just over MOP53.24 billion in the first five months, or 46.3 percent of the annual sum budgeted for, illustrating the importance of gaming-related taxation in the government’s revenue-raising efforts.
In the corresponding period of 2018 the city’s government collected almost MOP47.52 billion in current revenue from the gaming industry and almost MOP53.56 billion from all sources.
It the first five months of 2019 the fiscal surplus was MOP31.93 billion.
When forecasting its annual finances, the government tends to be conservative about estimating the amount of current revenue it will get from gaming.
The government taxes the gross gaming revenue (GGR) of Macau casinos at the rate of 35 percent, but other levies on casino gaming raise the effective GGR tax rate to 39 percent.
Taxes on the Macau gaming sector as a whole include levies on the takings of Chinese traditional lotteries, horseracing, instant lotteries and tax on commissions earned by operators of gambling junkets.
