Bingo Tax Duty Cut

Some good news for bingo players in today’s budget, Chancellor Alistair Darling has announced that the tax duty on real world bingo halls will be cut from 22% to 20% in April 2010. However, it’s really a case of one step forward and two steps back, after the tax hike from 15% to 22% was instituted the April 2009 budget.

So bingo clubs are still paying 5% more in taxation than in 2009. No wonder online bingo is booming! The combination of the smoking ban, tax rise and the credit crunch has resulted in many bingo halls in England closing their doors. The UK Bingo tax is totally unfair, it amounts to a special tax on Bingo revenue. Bingo clubs, like all businesses, are subject to normal corporation tax on their profits. The Bingo tax rate has been applied only to land based bingo halls and all other forms of gaming, like sports betting, fruit machines and casinos enjoy the lower tax rate. Like most bingo players I believe that this tax is discriminatory, wrong, unfair and should be withdrawn.