In the wake of recent discoveries of money laundering and tax evasion, that ultimately lead to the assassination of journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia, Marcus Ferber, the vice chairman of the European Parliament’s Economic and Monetary Affairs Committee, has proposed significant changes on tax regulations withing the EU. He aims to introduce a unified tax-levy that will be based on annual revenue and will apply to all European Union members. In the case of Malta, this will likely lead to severe upheaval as the current tax requirements are a mere 5% corporate tax.
What's more on that?
Currently, iGaming related tax revenues amount to 12.5% of Malta's GDP, a staggering €1.4 billion per year. If the proposed legislation does indeed pass this will evidently lead to a mass exodus of local-based operators like Cherry AB, Betsson Group, Evoke Gaming etc. who hold offices in Malta due to these favorable taxes. According to Politico, the new proposal will be put forth in Q2 2018 at the European Commission and besides Luxembourg and Ireland, who have already voiced their opposition, it is still hard to tell which side the remaining members will take. What remains to be seen, is whether the Maltese Authorities along with local based operators will try their best to lobby against this decision, or if Luxembourg and Ireland will hold their stance and veto the proposal, given that all members have to unanimously vote for a proposal for it to pass.