Greece demands €200M from GVC Holdings

[The Buzz]

Greek tax authorities have hit GVC Holdings with a hefty back-tax demand of close to €200 million ($249 million).

According to an article from The Greek Reporter, GVC announced last week that it received a tax audit assessment from the Greek Audit Center for Large Enterprises, demanding €186.77 million in back taxes to cover a GVC subsidiary’s activity in the Greek market for 2010 and 2011. The subsidiary in question was owned during the period by Sportingbet, whose operations GVC acquired in 2013.

From The Greek Reporter:

GVC says the nine-figure demand is “substantially higher by multiples of the total Greek revenues generated” by Sportingbet during the period in question.

It also disputed the Greek taxman’s methodology for arriving at this “widely exaggerated” figure, while noting that “multiple other online gaming operators” had been subjected to similar demands.

“This is a spurious and opportunistic claim made on the background of a Greek government desperate to pay its debts to the IMF,” a person close to the company’s leadership was quoted as saying by the U.K.’s Financial Times.

Read more the entire article here: http://greece.greekreporter.com/2018...gambling-firm/

[universal4]

If they are able to enforce this, or even if they end up having to "settle" for a portion of it, I wonder how many more times we will see similar stories of this happening in other countries. I am guessing other tax authorities will watch the outcome of this case, or may just start filing similar cases.

Rick
Universal4