According to the report by senator Angelo Coronel (PSD-BA), approved a week ago, companies in the sector will pay a 12% tax on revenue obtained from games. It reduced the 18% rate approved by the Chamber of Deputies, extended the grant period from 3 to 5 years for R$30 million (US$ 6m) with three brands by the operator and includes the exploration of online casinos and other virtual modalities.
Players will pay 15% income tax on prizes obtained. The amount will only be charged on premiums higher than the first range of the annual progressive tax table, currently worth R$2,112.
In an interview with TV Senado, the rapporteur stated that “we are not inventing anything. Gaming has existed for many years, but underground. With regulation, it will be fine as taxes will be charged from both companies and players.”
Five amendments and two requests were presented to Angelo Coronel's report. The most forceful attempt once again attempts to ban fixed-odd betting on virtual online gaming events, presented by senator Carlos Portinho (PL-RJ). He justifies, as he has already done in the discussions of the Economic Affairs Committee, that this “opens the possibility of a kind of legalization of gambling without the law.”
Still at CAE, senator Angelo Coronel rejected an amendment in this regard, warning that removing bets on virtual events would put an end to the Bill and that the practice is already widespread and that it would not make any sense to exclude it from the Bill.
Portinho presented another amendment prohibiting the broadcast of advertising pieces between 6 and 22:59. Furthermore, the amendment seeks to prohibit the broadcasting of advertising or propaganda that sponsors teams, individual athletes, former athletes, referees, members of technical committees, as well as championships organized by recognized Olympic sports confederations and linked to the COB, as well as the federations affiliated to them of all sports.
The senator from Rio de Janeiro presented another ruling that the Bill does not apply to lotteries, determining in his amendment that the installation or availability of equipment or other devices in physical establishments that are intended for the sale of bets in a virtual environment is prohibited.
With this, he wants to “prevent the proliferation of casinos, slot machine houses, as well as the installation of equipment in businesses... and there will be no double interpretation regarding the possibility of exploring online games through physical establishments, with the possible installation of online gaming machines.”
Jorge Kajuru (PSB-GO) presented an amendment asking that the same tax burden of 15% be applied to fantasy sports bettors as sports betting bettors, so as not to cause the migration of fantasy sports players to sports betting vertical.
Kajuru also wants more clarity in the article that prohibits members or shareholders of a “Sociedade Anônima de Futebol” (Football Corporation) or professional sports organization from holding mandates or holding shares in sports betting houses. In its amendment, he justifies that the PL approved by the CAE generically described the entities and asks for the characteristic that the SAF and sports teams are “Brazilian” to be literally pointed out.
As for the two requests presented, both are from Portinho. One of them asks for a separate vote, in the Plenary, on his amendment presented in the CAE and which was not accepted by rapporteur Angelo Coronel with the same content as the one he presented now, prohibiting the broadcast of advertising pieces between 6 and 22:59.
The other, that the issue of lotteries also be voted on separately so that “casinos, slot machine houses, as well as the installation of equipment in businesses, do not proliferate.”
As the project was presented in the Chamber of Deputies and amended in the Senate, once voted on it will return to the Chamber for further deliberation.
Source: GMB
