Kazakhstan will begin to monitor players' bets.
At the end of last year, changes were made to the Tax Code of the Republic of Kazakhstan, which obliges gambling operators to provide information on bets to the tax authorities. This information must be transmitted in an integrated manner. That is, interaction between tax authorities and operators must be ensured. These changes took effect on February 12.
Also at the legislative level, an obligation was established for banks and financial organizations, upon request of the tax authorities, to provide information on the financial transactions of legal entities to control the payment of taxes.
Dmitry Hotsyn, Senior Consultant and Head of CIS Desk at 4H Agency, has commented on the situation:
Today, it is unclear whether Kazakhstan will introduce control over the gambling market according to the European model or will come up with some of its approaches because the changes mentioned above to the law only establish the obligation of operators to transfer information. The set of data, for example, bet, payout, game time, player data, and so on, will be established by the decision of the regulatory authority and is currently unclear.
At the same time, the rule on the possibility of checking financial transactions through banks suggests that the primary goal of these changes is tax control over the gambling market and filling the budget.
We at 4H Agency see similar trends in many markets where gambling was legalized relatively recently. As practice shows, the first stage is to adopt norms that legalize the market and then the authorities begin to create/strengthen control tools.
From our experience in Kazakhstan, we can say that these are unlikely to be the last changes because there are still quite a lot of issues in the market that need to be addressed: responsible gambling, advertising, fair taxation, the fight against illegal operators and the processing of payments to their side.
To summarize, we would like to note that the introduction of reporting for operators is a positive signal; now the main thing is that the implementation of this norm takes into account the interests of all parties, and then Kazakhstan can continue to be an attractive jurisdiction for expansion.
At the end of last year, changes were made to the Tax Code of the Republic of Kazakhstan, which obliges gambling operators to provide information on bets to the tax authorities. This information must be transmitted in an integrated manner. That is, interaction between tax authorities and operators must be ensured. These changes took effect on February 12.
Also at the legislative level, an obligation was established for banks and financial organizations, upon request of the tax authorities, to provide information on the financial transactions of legal entities to control the payment of taxes.
Dmitry Hotsyn, Senior Consultant and Head of CIS Desk at 4H Agency, has commented on the situation:
Today, it is unclear whether Kazakhstan will introduce control over the gambling market according to the European model or will come up with some of its approaches because the changes mentioned above to the law only establish the obligation of operators to transfer information. The set of data, for example, bet, payout, game time, player data, and so on, will be established by the decision of the regulatory authority and is currently unclear.
At the same time, the rule on the possibility of checking financial transactions through banks suggests that the primary goal of these changes is tax control over the gambling market and filling the budget.
We at 4H Agency see similar trends in many markets where gambling was legalized relatively recently. As practice shows, the first stage is to adopt norms that legalize the market and then the authorities begin to create/strengthen control tools.
From our experience in Kazakhstan, we can say that these are unlikely to be the last changes because there are still quite a lot of issues in the market that need to be addressed: responsible gambling, advertising, fair taxation, the fight against illegal operators and the processing of payments to their side.
To summarize, we would like to note that the introduction of reporting for operators is a positive signal; now the main thing is that the implementation of this norm takes into account the interests of all parties, and then Kazakhstan can continue to be an attractive jurisdiction for expansion.
