European Gaming Lawyer magazine Autumn 2016 | Page 8

Belgium’s VAT on online gaming and
betting or how to best affect the charms
of an otherwise attractive market
by Tatjana Klaeser

I

t all started from a good intention:
closing a budget gap partly due to the
terrorist attacks in Brussels. This lead
the Belgian government, on 9 April
2016, to officially announce a series of
measures aimed at boosting its tax income. The
measures included a plan to terminate the VAT
exemption on private gambling and betting offers,
supposed to generate an extra 39 million Euros of
revenues for the State. The idea to apply VAT to the
private sector was then introduced and voted in a
Finances Bill adjusting the budget for 2016.
Despite the provisions of the Finances Bill being
immediately applicable and having already been
translated into the VAT act, it is not clear, at the
moment, how VAT is to be applied to gaming and
betting services. An explanatory memorandum from
the tax authorities has been announced for months but
was still not issued at the time these lines were written.
Nevertheless, the measures are already hugely
controversial as they do not apply to the National
Lottery’s products and will, eventually, adversely affect
Belgium’s regulatory efforts to channel consumers
towards a regulated market.
The VAT debate
The decision to submit all private gambling and betting
offers to the application of VAT was introduced on

8 | European Gaming Lawyer | Autumn Issue | 2016

25 May 2016 through a short reference in the general
presentation of the new Finances Bill to adjust the
budget for 2016. With no further indication as to the
calculation method, it is merely declared that 39.000
million Euros will be generated by terminating the
exemption of games of chance and betting from VAT.
The regional government of Wallonia, home to 4
casinos, 82 arcades, 270 betting shops, 460 bookstalls
and 2.700 cafés, immediately opposed the government’s
resolution and requested the meeting of a Conciliation
Committee, a typically Belgian way to solve conflicts of
interest between the federal and regional Governments.
The Committee gathered on 25 May and verbally
agreed that only the online gambling and betting
sectors should be subject to VAT.
Despite a negative opinion from both the Audit
Court and the Council of State, and without any
amendment to limit the application of VAT to the
online sector, the bill was passed on 30 May 2016,
with effect as from 1 July 2016.
At the same time, the Minister of Finances
declared on the tax authorities’ web site, that the
entry into force of the new taxation is delayed until
1 August 2016, to “allow the sector to prepare the
changes” and the tax administration to “issue a
memorandum which discusses the practical aspects
and consequences of these new rules”. More than one
month after the new rules are supposed to enter into