12:13 22.08.2023

The issue of understated tax payments for the gambling business in 2022 remains open, companies must pay billions of hryvnias to the budget, Danylo Hetmantsev, head of the parliamentary committee on finance, tax and customs policy, has said.

“The vast majority of operators is already working not in the shadow and pay taxes that are incomparable to last year to the state budget. But we must increase this pressure and constantly monitor their activities for compliance with the law. And making them pay money for 2022 is a matter of principle for me,” Hetmantsev said in an interview with Interfax-Ukraine.

As the head of the committee said, this year gambling business payments to the budget are expected at the level of about UAH 7 billion, and the same amount should be in 2022.

Hetmantsev said that there are market entities that have already stopped their activities and will not pay taxes, but in this case, in his opinion, law enforcement agencies should work on them.

He also said that he was initiating amendments to the law on the gambling business, according to which an additional reason for canceling a license is the tax debt of the payer, so that the company could not continue to work without paying taxes.

As for the Gambling and Lotteries Regulation Commission, Hetmantsev believes that after the restoration of the quorum after a six-month break, it is still too early to talk about a full-fledged resumption of the work of the market regulator.

“It seems to me that our committee was most interested in restoring this quorum, because we adopted amendments to the law, publicly pressured them to finally meet. Therefore, it is definitely too early to talk about the full resumption of the work of the Gambling and Lotteries Regulation Commission. We will follow very closely carefully over the work of the Commission and will not give the opportunity to make certain mistakes,” the head of the parliamentary committee said.

According to him, some questions about the continuation of work on the Ukrainian market of operators with ties with the Russian Federation need additional clarification, but tax audits will start from September.

“I think that there will be a lot of interesting things about those business entities that have committed the relevant violations,” Hetmantsev added.

Earlier, the first deputy head of the committee, Yaroslav Zhelezniak, said that the gambling business of Ukraine in January-June 2023 paid UAH 2.94 billion in taxes, which is 14 times more than in the same period of 2022. According to Zhelezniak, last year the state budget received only UAH 1.056 billion in revenue from the gambling business, although at least UAH 12 billion a year was announced before the legalization of the market.