Online Gambling Patrons Being Taxed

January 30, 2009

Netherlands� online gamblers are feeling a bit spied on these days as they just received word from the government that not only are they aware that they have been participating in online gambling but that they were now being taxed on it as well. The online gamblers thought that they were playing anonymously, but this is not the case.

Dutch officials have sent out information on Dutch tax laws as well as tax forms. They have told them that they need to complete their tax returns on any of their undeclared online gambling winnings. They let them know that they are aware of who is participating in online gambling and who needs to pay taxes on those winnings.

Even more confusing than this recent crackdown though is the fact that Dutch residents cannot figure out how officials tracked them down. It seems that it would be very difficult to match the online gambling aliases at all of the different online gambling sites with their residents.

They say that since the Dutch Senate approved the online gambling taxation bill so that they could now tax participants in the industry, many were assuming that they could not trace them and therefore there was very little issue as to whether or not they would need to claim their winnings. Up until this point online gambling was considered illegal in the country, so that they could maintain their monopoly that they had through Holland Casino.

Now it would seem that not only is it illegal, but they are able to figure out who is winning what and making sure they pay for it. It would seem the tax money is more important fiscally than keeping their monopoly.
 

 

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