In the ACT, various political parties are going head-to-head over pokie taxes. While ACT pokies generate fewer taxes than gaming machines in other states, local politicians continue to debate whether or not to introduce a tax hike. In order to catch up to the national average, ACT pokies would have to generate an additional $20 million in taxes. Currently, they pay about $34 million annually.
In order to boost their taxes, Quinlan suggested hiking taxes by $9.5 million every year through a license fee on pokies and a tax increase for higher-earning clubs. His proposal will introduce a license fee of $1000 per poker machine, encouraging clubs to eliminate pokies that are not profitable. It would help to reduce the number of pokies in the state, as Canberra has a higher pokie-to-person rate than any other state in Australia.
Clubs that earn $2.4 million would have their taxes increased to 25% while clubs that earn $6 million would pay 34%. The plan has been rejected by other politicians across the state. The ACT is facing a $770 million deficit and there is a need to generate more taxes – but lawmakers cannot agree on a viable method of doing so. Jeff House, Chief Executive of Clubs ACT, has spoken out against the tax recommendations.
He stated that they would ‘tax clubs out of business’. Over time, this would reduce taxes overall, because there would be fewer clubs to contribute gaming taxes to the government. Gaming Minister Joy Burch plans to introduce her own tax recommendations. It will not include a licensing fee for pokies, and it will only tax clubs that earn over $7.5 million from their games per year.
The highest-earning clubs will pay more in tax while the smaller clubs will pay less – and, 15 clubs will not pay any taxes at all.
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