Betting tax: Who is keeping the 10% deducted from bettors’ winnings?

Former Finance Minister, Dr Mohammed Amin Adam seems to have staired the hornets nest with a comment he made in reaction to his successor’s announcement of government’s decision to abolish Betting Tax.

During his presentation of the 2025 Budget Statement and Economic Policy on March 11, Dr Cassiel Ato Forson announced that government will abolish betting tax.

“Mr. Speaker: we will abolish the 10% withholding tax on winnings from lottery, otherwise known as the “Betting Tax.“”

However, addressing journalists in Parliament shortly after the presentation of the 2025 Budget, the Karaga MP accused the government of deceiving Ghanaians by committing to abolish the “Betting Tax.

He claimed that the NPP administration never implemented the betting tax, hence Ghanaians should not rejoice over the announcement to remove the tax as it never existed.

“Ladies and Gentlemen, betting tax that they said they had abolished, we never collected betting tax. We never implemented the betting tax so to come and tell Ghanaians that you have abolished something that was never implemented is to deceive the people of Ghana,” he stated.

This statement has attracted severe backlash from bettors on social media. The main question they are asking is “if so, where is the 10% deducted from our winnings?”

 

 

Dr Amin Adam has responded to his critics. He posted on Facebook later on March 11 that, ” Betting Tax- The tax applies to lottery wins and betting wins. What the Minister said he is abolishing is the lottery wins which knowingly or unknowingly he called it “betting tax”. We have never collected the tax on lottery wins so it cannot be abolished.”

NDC’s Tax Deception 1. Emmission tax… – Dr. Mohammed Amin Adam | Facebook

3news research has revealed that the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) has with effect from 24th April, 2024, been implementing what they call “Taxation of Gross Gaming Revenue and Winnings from Lottery Operations.”

This is contained in a document titled “Amended Practice Note on Taxation of Gross Gaming Revenue and Winnings from Lottery Operations under the Income Tax Act, 2015 (ACT 896)” issued by the then Commissioner General, Julie Essiam.

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Excerpts from this document state that, “The Act requires that, a resident person who pays an amount as winnings
to a punter/player/wager (resident or non-resident person) through lottery operations, with a source in Ghana, shall withhold tax from the Gross Winnings paid at the rate specified under paragraph 8(1)(b)(x) of the First Schedule to the Act and pay same to the Commissioner-General.”

The Amended Practice Note lists Sources of Gross Winnings to include:
Lotto from NLA
Lotto from NLA Collaborators
Lotto from Private Lotto Operations
Sports Betting
Casino Games
Route Operations

Marketing promotions

Remote interactive games
Other games of chance

Under Calculation of Withholding Tax on Winnings, the procedure for Sports Betting, the following steps have been enumerated:

i. A player opts to withdraw a specific sum from their gaming wallet/account, known as the payout.
ii. The deductible stake is subtracted from the payout to derive the gross winnings – the amount on which withholding tax is calculated.
iii. WHT is calculated as 10% of the gross winnings. This tax amount is withheld from the payout.
iv. The remaining payout, after the withholding tax deduction, is then transferred to the player’s external wallet or account held with a financial institution.

According to the aggrieved bettors on social media, they are very familiar with the above process. That is because it is applied each time they win a bet.

The question being asked now is who is speaking the truth? Did Dr Ato Forson get it wrong by making ‘Lottery Wins’ synonymous with ‘Betting Tax’ as Dr Amin Adam wants us to believe? Or is it the case that Dr Amin Adam is trying to quell the backlash by throwing dust into our eyes?

Another question being asked is, “If the NPP did not implement the betting tax, what did their flagbearer for the 2024 presidential election, Dr Mahamudu Bawumia promise to abolish in his manifesto?

Under the circumstances, the only body that can settle the raging issue is the current Commissioner General of the Ghana Revenue Authority.

That is to say, did the betting companies pay the 10% deducted from the bettors’ winnings to GRA? If so, how come the Finance Minister, during whose tenure the tax was implemented, does not know?

Could it be that the betting companies have withheld the tax from the winnings but have not remitted same to the GRA?

Who has the 10% deducted from bettors’ winning? This is the question begging for an answer.

The post Betting tax: Who is keeping the 10% deducted from bettors’ winnings? first appeared on 3News.

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