Macau May gaming tax take reached US$407mln: govt

Jun 15, 2021 Newsdesk Latest News, Macau, Top of the deck  

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The Macau government collected MOP3.25 billion (US$406.5 million) in tax revenue from the city’s gaming industry for May. The figure was up nearly 541 percent from the nearly MOP507-million collected in the prior-year period, according to the latest official data released by the Financial Services Bureau.

Judged month-on-month, the May tax take was up slightly, by 1.28 percent from the nearly MOP3.21-billion collected in April.

In aggregate for the first five months of this year, the city recorded MOP15.63 billion in tax revenue from the gaming industry.

The Macau government forecast nearly MOP50.01 billion in taxes from the city’s gaming industry in full-year 2021, according to its budget plan for the current fiscal year.

The government taxes the gross gaming revenue (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.

Other taxes on the Macau gambling sector include levies on the income of Chinese traditional lotteries, on horse racing, and on instant lotteries. There is also tax on commissions earned by operators of gambling junkets.

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.

Macau’s casino GGR for May was nearly MOP10.45 billion, up 24.3 percent sequentially. The city’s aggregate casino GGR in the first five months of this year stood at MOP42.49 billion, an increase of 28.7 percent on the MOP33.00-billion achieved in the same period of 2020, according to information from Gaming Inspection and Coordination Bureau.

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