OFFICE OF GORDON & SARAH BROWNPRESS RELEASE  BROWN SUBMITS PROPOSALS TO GOVERNMENT  CONSULTATION RECOMMENDING TAX ON GAMBLING TO SOLVE “INTOLERABLE” CHILD POVERTY  CRISIS

 

BROWN SAYS A FAIRER TAX LEVY ON BETTING AND GAMBLING WILL LIFT 500,000 CHILDREN OUT OF POVERTY5 million children set to be in poverty by 2030’s .Half the children in Manchester and Birmingham  will be in poverty next yearTaxing gambling giants could raise the £3billion needed to lift 500,000 children out of poverty.Gambling industry faces lower revenue taxes in UK than other Western countriesPolls show the public overwhelmingly back the child-friendly proposals.

With child poverty rates in Britain the worst in recent memory and rising, the Tories may be out of government but their child poverty legacy remains, says anti-poverty campaigner and former PM Gordon Brown.

Mr Brown is submitting his proposals to the Government’s Consultation on Gambling which explain how ending the the under-taxing of online gambling and betting giants can raise the revenues needed to bring “intolerable” child poverty figures down.

4.5 million children are living in poverty and their numbers will grow every year by 100,000 without serious government action to improve family incomes .

By the 2030s, 5 million British children will be in poverty and, in cities like Manchester and Birmingham,  half of all their children will be in poverty.

Brown endorses new reports from the  IPPR https://www.ippr.org/articles/reforming-gambling-taxationand the Social Market Foundation  which between them show that  £3 billion could be raised from reform of gambling taxation to reverse this disastrous poverty epidemic and begin to end the poverty plight of half a million children.

Gambling in the UK is a £11.5 billion industry and one of the biggest in the world but our taxation rates on them is one of the lowest in the West.

With many of them based in tax havens, they escape corporation tax and pay just over 20 per cent in tax where cigarettes are taxed at 80 per cent in the shops and spirits around 70 per cent

Yet a fair levelling up of tax rates would, says Mr Brown, raise the £3 billion needed now to fund a fairer start in life for our worst off 500,000 children.

“The  child poverty review has a remit to ensure an enduring reduction in child poverty in this parliament” says Brown. “And the Labour manifesto promised to end the need for food parcels.

“Now for a fraction of the £30 billion spent in tax credits by the last Labour government, the IPPR and SMF evidence-based reports show how we can lift the first 500,000 children out of poverty.

“That so many children are  living in penury is intolerable. It is our most profound social crisis, causing us to look like two nations set apart from each other  and the best place to tackle poverty is in childhood before its scars debilitate whole lives and communities.”

“The chancellor has inherited a dismal fiscal position and  economic conditions are tough.

“But there are ways the Chancellor can start fulfilling her ambition to tackle child poverty without breaking either any of her fiscal rules or any manifesto commitments.

“In responding to the government’s invitation to submit evidence to both the child poverty review and to the recent gambling taxation consultation –  supported by recent reports from the Social Market Foundation and the IPPR  – a number of sources of revenues have been identified to redress our appalling child poverty rates and fairer taxation of the  gaming and betting industry is a good place to start.“We aren’t proposing taxes on lotteries or bingos or stop a flutter on horses, which as an industry would in any case receive £100m on our proposals, so don’t let  anyone lobbying for the gambling industry fool you otherwise.“We can and must give all our nations’ children the best start in life that we can.  Our country’s future will not be built by the gambling industry. It will be built by our children.“Every one of them deserves the best start in life. Fair taxes on online gambling can be ring fenced to begin that fair start at the budget.”The UK’s £11.5bn gambling industry currently incurs only £2.5bn in tax.

Polling shows that if lifting the two-child rule was the most cost-effective measure to cut poverty 77  of the public would support it.  https://www.focaldata.com/blog/our-scottish-future-exploring-the-british-publics-view-on-child-poverty

The IPPR report Reforming gambling taxation: How to lift half a million children out of poverty IPPR https://www.ippr.org/articles/reforming-gambling-taxation, published today shows an extra £3 billion could easily be raised by increasing tax rates to international norms.

Remote Gaming Duty is around 40 per cent in Holland and Austria, and over 50 per cent in many US states where it is legal, such as Pennsylvania. In  Delaware, which has a reputation for being a tax haven, the tax rate for online casino gaming is 57%.

In the UK online gaming is taxed at just 21% raising only £2.5bn, even though remote gaming yields have grown by 40 per cent after inflation in 10 years.

Applying a 50 per cent levy – much less than the 80 per cent tax on cigarettes sales  and the 70 per cent tax on whisky – would raise around £1.6bn, and raising General Betting Duty from 15 per cent to 25 per cent, could raise an additional £450m.

To achieve parity with their online equivalents Machine Game Duty payable on the revenue from in-person slot machines should also rise from 25 per cent to 50 per cent to raise, according to IPPR estimates, an additional £900m.