DEPUTIES plan to hold another two rushed meetings before tomorrow’s plenum in a bid to wrap discussions on the much-debated gaming bill.
Tomorrow will be the final session of parliament before it wraps up for elections on May 22.
Today, the House Legal Affairs, Institutions and Finance Committees are expected to conclude discussions on the tax that will be imposed for online gambling.
Speaking after yesterday’s meeting, the head of the Legal Affairs Committee, DISY’s Ionas Nicolaou, said it had been decided that a report would be drafted and all parties would submit their final say on the bill during tomorrow’s plenum.
“The report will contain the aims of the bill, the discussion that was carried out before the three committees and all sides will wait to offer their positions at the plenum,” said Nicolaou.
In the meantime, the committees plan to meet again today to discuss the tax system that will be used, which has not yet been agreed on.
“We essentially have two options before us: one concerns the system that is proposed in the bill and the other is the one that was implemented up to now,” said Nicolaou.
In the bill, the government proposes a 3.0 per cent tax on the total turnover from online gambling, as opposed to 10 per cent on the net profit, which was the case so far.
“Net profit in this case means the profit that is left, once the prize money given to the player is deducted from the turnover,” Nicolaou explained. “This means that if the turnover is, for example, one million (euro) and the prize money given to the players was €300,000, the €700,000 will be taxed at the rate of 10 per cent.”
He said he hoped discussions would wrap so the much-anticipated bill could finally be passed into law. “Otherwise it will have to wait until June,” Nicolaou stressed.
Ruling AKEL is of the view that all aspects of the discussion have been exhausted and it should therefore be passed tomorrow. “All questions have been discussed, all views have been submitted to the committees and therefore the matter is now up to the parliamentary groups,, who have to decide what their stance is towards the bill,” said AKEL’s Aristophanis Georgiou.
“And if anyone feels they are not satisfied with what we have discussed so far, they have the ability to file as many amendments as they wish at the plenum and the plenum will have the final say on any amendments submitted,” he added. “If we truly want to, we can finish this on Thursday.”
