Adoption of the Law on the legalization of gambling was the first step towards building a civilized gambling market in Ukraine. However, the first step is only the beginning of the path. In order to create favourable conditions for the market development, in addition to the basic law, it is necessary to adapt various areas of legislation to its specifics. That is why, in view of the current situation in the legal gambling market, it is necessary to adopt the sector-specific tax draft Law 2713-д as soon as possible.
Immediately upon the legalization of gambling in Ukraine, representatives of the market that received the relevant licenses began to talk about the need to adapt tax legislation to the specifics of gambling. This is logical, because the legislation that was adopted during the banning of gambling did not take into account the peculiarities of the newly created industry. That is why draft Law 2713-д was developed and finalized in the summer of 2020. It was designed to systematically regulate the taxation of the gambling business. You can read more about what taxes legal gambling operators pay today, what it affects and what changes draft Law 2713-д proposes in one of my previous blogs.
Despite the fact that the draft Law was developed more than 2.5 years ago, it has not yet been adopted due to a number of factors, including a lack of political will, strong opposition from some relevant ministries and, of course, the full-scale war with Russia.
Currently, however, the adoption of the law has become extremely necessary for the stabilization of the market and the survival of the industry, which has been significantly affected by the war. After all, in the current situation more and more unjustified criticism is aimed at legal gambling sector. In many ways, it is related to the alleged "underpayment" of taxes by licensees. These manipulations does not reflect the real situation and are largely based on the fact that we do not have transparent tax legislation, but there is a possibility of a double interpretation of the current provisions.
Another step that should be taken together with the adoption of draft Law 2713-д is the adoption of the project of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine "On approval of the Procedure for the operation of the State Online Monitoring System" (SOMS). Its introduction will make it possible to systematize control over all financial operations of players and, accordingly, to tax legal gambling organizers more accurately and transparently.
I do hope that in the near future the licensees will be able to discuss the implementation of the mentioned legislative initiatives with the relevant representatives of the government agencies within the framework of the existing consultation mechanisms, which we mentioned in the recent open letter. I am confident that the adoption of these initiatives will allow stabilizing the situation in the market, make it more transparent and give impetus to further development. This will also make it possible to reduce significantly the volume of manipulations regarding "non-payment" of taxes by legal gambling organizers.