Costa Rica may tax online gambling companies

[The Buzz]

Costa Rica is a haven for a number of online gambling companies, including Rome Casino and 5Dimes. There have been some rumblings about the Costa Rican government taxing these companies.

RecentPoker.com confirmed these rumblings:

Speculation in July this year that the Costa Rican Finance Minister was about to introduce a new taxation regime targeting online gambling companies has been confirmed by the publication Inside Costa Rica.

The publication reports that Finance Minister Guillermo Zuñiga has introduced a bill into the legislative assembly that, if approved, would impose a tax of 2 percent on the revenues of all online and offline gambling operators based in the Central American country - a haven for many Internet gambling firms.

[casinojack]

Is only 2%, would be a good thing I think

Vegas is I think up to 6.5% ???

[Anthony]

I don't think 2% will cause a mass Exodus of programs from Costa Rica.

[Shaun O'neill]

In my view it would be a very sad for Costa Rivca to do such a thing, 95% of the gaming companies pay local taxes for staff this amount to millions of colones every year, all they need to do is look at what happend when BOS went tits up and 1500 or so lost there jobs, San Pedro area went to ****, so if they added this 2% i am sure most companies would move in Panama at the drop of hat.

i loved CR but Panama is better place to me this would be crazy.

Shaun

[Punters Choice]

There is a number of countries opening up their doors to online casino licensing. And these new players are dangling additional perks and incentives. This could be a bad move for the Costa Rica government.

[LiveCasinoPartners]

How can they enforce it?

Personally, I'm for making the entire gaming industry in Costa Rica more legitimate. If they were charging 2% to regulate that would be great. One more level of accountability. In this case they just want 2% without providing any value. Rogue casinos could pay tax and go on as business as usual?