Ruling AKP provides a large tax support for gambling

While workers, civil servants and retirees were having a hard time making ends meet, the government provided a large tax support for gambling.

In Turkey, one of the countries with the heaviest tax burden in the world, the government eased taxes not on citizens but on gambling.

With the decree published in the Official Gazette yesterday, there was a 50 percent decrease in taxes collected from games of chance.

In our country, where the indirect tax is 65 percent and the government crushed the citizens under a heavy tax burden with many new invented taxes such as increasing VAT as soon as they won the election and doubling the MTV, the reduction in gambling tax made us say "this is not possible".

TAX SUPPORT FOR THE GAMBLERS

With the decree published in the Official Gazette, an amendment was made to the Law No. 5602 on the Regulation of Taxes, Funds and Shares Collected from Games of Chance Revenues.

Accordingly, a 5 percent tax reduction was made for joint bets based on sports events, 7 percent for horse races and 10 percent for other games of chance.

The tax on other games of chance such as the “National” Lottery, scratch cards and online gambling games was reduced from 20 percent to 10 percent.