The Russian Poker Championship at the Corona Casino in Moscow
Photo: Dmitry Lebedev
| Other Photos |
 |
|
 |
Tax Service Given Power over Gaming
The government has granted the Federal Tax Service the authority to inspect gambling establishments for conformity with recent stricter legislation covering them. The broad new rights, some of which the tax service tried to turn down, will give it tight control over the industry and allow it to sue for the closure of those businesses, when necessary.
Under the law “On State Regulation of Activities to Organize and Conduct Games of Chance,” which came into force on July 1, 2007, a casino must at least 800 sq. m. in size and contain at least ten tables, and a gaming hall should contain at least 50 machines in no less than 100 sq. m. Furthermore, the machines must be set to pay out at least 90 percent of their monetary take. The tax service has always licensed those businesses, but was not authorized until recently to inspect them without a letter of instruction from the Finance Ministry, and the new law went without enforcement, aside from stopgap measures taken on the local level.
One of the delays in issuing that letter was the tax service's unwillingness to inspect the gaming machines for technical specifications. It suggested that the federal technical supervision service (Rostekhregulirovanie) be given that function, which the Finance Ministry found unacceptable. In spite of Chief of the Presidential Executive Staff Sergey Sobyanin's written support for the tax service's position, the Finance Ministry prevailed in that disagreement.
www.kommersant.com
All the Article in Russian as of Jan. 18, 2008
|
|
|
