do companies pay tax on gambling profits in the UK?

[marksmeets302]

According to an article in a dutch newspaper (http://fd.nl/Print/krant/Pagina/Voorpag ... n_fd_krant for those that can read dutch), the high court has decided that foreign gambling sites like betfair have to block dutch citizens. For me this blows. I'm dutch and doing well on betfair and betdaq. Perhaps a way out is to start a company in the UK and trade from there through a VPS.

I know people in the UK don't have to pay taxes on their gambling profits. Is this also the case for companies?

Thanks,

Mark.

[74.5]

According to an article in a dutch newspaper (http://fd.nl/Print/krant/Pagina/Voorpag ... n_fd_krant for those that can read dutch), the high court has decided that foreign gambling sites like betfair have to block dutch citizens. For me this blows. I'm dutch and doing well on betfair and betdaq. Perhaps a way out is to start a company in the UK and trade from there through a VPS.

I know people in the UK don't have to pay taxes on their gambling profits. Is this also the case for companies?

Thanks,

Mark.

Mark
Here is the UK telephone number for the UK Revenue & Customs office.They will be able to answer all of your questions: 0845 010 9000.
74.5.

[Boing]

As you are an EU citizen establish yourself in the UK, set up a bank account and bet from a UK account where individuals do not need to pay taxes.

I guess if you set up a company to do this activity on your behalf it will be a different scenario as the company will be providing a service which is taxable.

[74.5]

Mark
Also,if you set up a UK company,it would involve paying an accountant to set the company up for you and for creating a yearly set of accounts and for submitting all the paperwork to the tax authorities.That would cost you about £300-£500 a year.

I don't know if the company would have to pay taxes on any profits.You would need to check that with the UK tax authorities.However,it is my understanding that when it comes to getting the money out of the company's account into your account,then you would be classed either as a Director or employee of the company and you would be taxed - regardless of how the company made its money.Therefore,setting up a UK company is probably not the best solution.
74.5

[Dobbin]

Why don't you take this to the European Court of Human Rights.

Surely this a a breach

[nomadic]

Mark
Also,if you set up a UK company,it would involve paying an accountant to set the company up for you and for creating a yearly set of accounts and for submitting all the paperwork to the tax authorities.That would cost you about £300-£500 a year.

I don't know if the company would have to pay taxes on any profits.You would need to check that with the UK tax authorities.However,it is my understanding that when it comes to getting the money out of the company's account into your account,then you would be classed either as a Director or employee of the company and you would be taxed - regardless of how the company made its money.Therefore,setting up a UK company is probably not the best solution.
74.5

This is what I would guess as well. I don't know much about UK specific laws, but I would be quite surprised if it were possible to get money out of the company without incurring tax. Even if the UK company were not taxed on its gambling profits, to get the money out of the company, you would either have to pay it out to yourself as salary or a dividend, at which point it would most likely be taxed (at a minimum you would probably have a Dutch tax obligation on that salary or dividend income even if the UK didn't withhold anything from it).

Having said that, if my wikipedia source is correct the dividend tax rate in the Netherlands is 15%, so perhaps it's a tolerable rate for your situation.

[marksmeets302]

Thanks guys, opening a bank account in the UK is probably the easiest solution... if possible. Tomorrow I'll talk about things with an accountant. It's a situation that needs to change anyway: Dutch law requires me to pay gambling taxes on my betfair/betdaq income. This is 28% (and this is after the 33% commission I pay to betfair), so not a whole lot is left. Paying 15% in dividend tax is already better, especially because I will be able to write that off against income tax.

I guess it all depends on if I'm able to open a UK account without being a UK citizen.

I'm not prepared to take this to court, don't have time for that. Better leave that to the betting exchanges, their interest in that should be far greater.

Mark.

[nomadic]

Hi Mark - for opening bank accounts in other countries, you might want to check out http://www.unicash-icm.com/

Haven't used it myself, but through their network, it would seem to be rather easy to open a Dutch account at Rabobank and have them in turn open an account for you at Lloyd's.

But I think that part may be only one part of the puzzle. In order to dodge the Dutch Betfair restriction, you'll probably need to register yourself at a UK address (and probably also become an official UK resident to be fully compliant with the Dutch law). Depends I suppose on whether it's a two-way street where Betfair is agreeing to comply with the Dutch law...

[sillyjeans]

Would you consider teaching a novice how to trade and in return I could pay you. Obviously the logistics would have to be ironed out. But with zero commission and tax payable initially I am sure we could come to some mutually agreeable situation that does not breach any laws or rules. A win win sitaution. Just like greening up really.


sillyjeans

[marksmeets302]

Sorry sillyjeans, that would destroy my own strategies. As it is right now I would love to be able to trade them a thousand times bigger, but the fact of the matter is: I can't.

Why not sign up for a course with Peter Webb? Better learn from the best! (I'm not even in his league )

Mark

[nicrag9]

You do not need to pay an accountant to set up a company or do your accounts, in fact if you do them yourself you will often save a lot of potential tax, because you will do it properly, whereas an accountant will tend to claim certain allowances but unless you sit with them and go through every receipt they will not claim for much that you can claim for. When I was trading on Ebay, I did quite a lot of business with US companies, so I got a dollar account. I found it very useful, as I often had to change 20,000-35,000 dollars, and by being able to move the money between accounts within one bank, in this case Lloyds, I never seemed to pay any kind of charges. Obviously there was the difference between them buying and selling currency, but I never paid any percentage on top, I seem to recall taht I save several thousand in charges that way. I never knew why they did not charge me, but I was not going to ask them about it, in case they started to.

[Iron]

You can also ring 01702 348 944 (or +441702 348 944 if you're dialling from outside the UK).

Number found at http://www.saynoto0870.com

Jeff

Mark
Here is the UK telephone number for the UK Revenue & Customs office.They will be able to answer all of your questions: 0845 010 9000.
74.5.