Jeg er i tvivl om denne sag har været diskuteret før på Pokernet, men bær over med mig hvis den har.
Jeg blev gjort bekendt med følgende links idet jeg forhørte mig om skattesituationen i forhold til PropagandaPoker.
www.casino-spel.nu/pokerspelare-i-skattetvist-far-hjalp-av-nordicbet/
www.spelnet.se/news.asp?aid=3092&showcat=all&startat=0
www.kronofogden.se/rattsinformation/skrivelser/aldrear/2004/2004/skrivelser20040331a.4.18e1b10334ebe8bc80005141.html
De svenske skattemyndigheders valg om ikke at opkræve skat af penge vundet indenfor EU (altså hvis blot sitet har hjemme indefor EU) skyldes vel EU-regler. Man kan vel ikke forestille sig at de svenske myndigheder blot opgiver denne indtægt uden grund?
De samme EU-regler er gældende for Danmark. Vil det så ikke efter al sandsynlighed give samme resultat, hvis det blev prøvet ved en dansk domstol?
Venlig hilsen Peter
Skattefrihed: Danmark/Sverige
Det ville jeg ikke turde satse på... England har vel også samme EU-regler som os andre, og der er alle gevinster skattefrie (så vidt jeg har hørt gennem pokerprofiler herinde, der er bosat i England)...
Hvis dit argument virker, så kan man lige så godt sige, at alle pokersites er skattefrie, for sådan er reglerne i England... Men det er i hvert fald ikke tilfældet... Så at sige, at hvis reglerne er på en måde i et medlemsland, så bør de også være sådan i de andre, er at simplificere tingene lidt for meget, og jeg tror du får ganske svært ved at overbevise SKAT med det argument...
Bemærk: Jeg har ikke taget stilling til, hvorvidt sitet er skattefrit/skattepligtigt, men blot til hvorvidt argumentet vil kunne bruges.
Det er ikke alene EU-reglerne, som gør, at poker gevinster er skattefrie i DK, hvis udbyderne har EU-licens.
Det er SAMSPILLET med de nationale skatteregler og Eu-reglerne om fri bevægelighed som gør, at gevinsterne er skattefrie i DK, hvis udbyderen har EU-licens.
Derfor kan du ikke argumentere sådan
I am sorry about writing in English, but as I am a "fjeldabe" I felt that English was a safer choice than Norwegian in order to avoid misunderstandings.
Firstly I work for Propaganda Poker, hence it is of course possible that my views regarding this could be biased. I do also apologize for posting such a long and boring answer, but I feel that this is an extremely important issue for the Danish poker community so I hope that you will be able to be overbearing....
ZorroDk, I feel that you missed PBaek's point. He is not trying to say that all EU/EEA-countries need to have exactly the same rules regarding taxation of winnings from online gaming. He is however saying that each and every EU member country has to observe EU-law, and that EU-law is exactly the same for Denmark as it is for Sweden.
The situation in Sweden was that the Swedish tax authorities dragged a Swedish citizen to court to make him pay tax of his winnings from nordicbet.com. You can be read about this in the first link in the post of PBaek.
www.casino-spel.nu/pokerspelare-i-skattetvist-far-hjalp-av-nordicbet/
The customer was aided by Nordicbet and as far as I know, they paid for the lawyer he used in court. The Swedish tax authority lost the case and the customer did not have to pay any tax to the Swedish authorities for his winnings from Nordicbet. According to press reports the Swedish authorities lost the case as the Swedish law was directly contravening EU-law. After the court's decision the rules regarding taxation from poker winnings now seem pretty clear cut in Sweden. It does not matter if the operator hold an EU-license. I strongly doubt that the Swedish tax authorities will again dare to lock horns with EU-law.
Nordicbet holds an Isle of Man license. Isle of Man is not part of the EU. Isle of Man has a very limited agreement with the EU about free movement of goods. They do not have any agreements regarding free movement of services or people. In other words one can make an argument that Nordicbet does not hold an EU-license. Nordicbet however has company registered in Malta „Nordic Gaming Group Limited”. They do also have several other companies in EU-countries. These companies pay direct and indirect taxes to their respective EU-states. I guess that almost their entire work force are EU-citizens and resides in EU-countries. Their main office is in Tallinn (Estonia, an EU-member). Even if Nordicbet do not hold an EU-license for online gaming, the court did not seem to care, but ruled that according to EU-law the winnings were not taxable in Sweden. Exactly the same EU-law is applicable in Denmark. In other words; the guidelines and advice from "SKAT" is not the end of the story. These guidelines have to be in accordance with EU-law. If they are not, EU-law prevails, just as it happened in Sweden some weeks ago.
The second link is about the outcome of the case:
www.spelnet.se/news.asp?aid=3092&showcat=all&startat=0
I am aware that the Danish Ministry of Taxation on the 15th of March 2004 made a statement that there would be no Danish income tax on winnings from games and lotteries:
1. approved and supervised by a public authority
of another EU or European Economic
Area (EEA) country, and
2. meeting the requirements of the gaming legislation
in such other EU or EEA country,
provided that
3. a game etc. similar to the foreign game in
question is offered legally in Denmark without
any income taxation of the winnings.
I agree that these “guidelines” ( although they are vague) seem to indicate, that income from operators who do not hold an EU-license would be taxable in Denmark.
I am of course also aware of the ruling by the Danish Tax Council of April 25th 2006, that winnings from Ladbrokes Poker would be tax free, specifically mentioned that “the game was approved and inspected by public authorities in another EU or EEA member and meets the requirements of the gambling laws of that member state”.
It is totally understandable that with the “advice and guidelines” currently on the table it is easy to conclude that winnings from operators who do not hold an EU-member license would be taxable. I would just again like to stress that as the Swedish authorities painfully realized some weeks ago; that if not the “advice and guidelines” are in accordance with EU-law, it is EU-law that will prevail.
Furthermore, I have a very hard time believing that the Swedish authorities would give up on trying to tax the customers with winnings from Nordicbet unless they were simply forced by the court to realize that their “rules” could not directly contravene EU-law.
It is of course IMPOSSIBLE to give any guarantees, but I would be surprised if a Danish court would not reach the same conclusion as the Swedish court, and rule that winnings from an operator which has companies inside the EU-area, pays taxes to EU member states, has a workforce made up of almost exclusively EU-citizens, would be tax free. After all, EU-law prevails even if it is in direct conflict with the Danish law.
There are numerous examples of tax authorities making rules that contravene EU-law. One of the most famous is the Lindmann-case. Diana Elisabeth Lindmann a Finnish resident won a decent amount of money during a vacation in Sweden, and the Finnish tax authorities demanded that she should pay taxes from her winnings. As the Finnish tax authorities refused to give in, the case ended up in the EU-court in 2002. The EU-court did not surprisingly rule that the taxation of her winnings would contravene EU-law and the authorities in all the Nordic countries and many other EU member states had to change their rules.
My point is that tax authorities in general are greedy, that the governments in the Nordic countries do not at all like online gaming and want to limit online gaming as much as possible. Considering this the very vague “guidelines and advice” from “Skat” can not be trusted.
As I have already stated, after the recent ruling in Sweden I feel confident that a Danish court would rule that winnings from an operator who has it companies based inside the EU-area would be tax free. EU-law is very clear, winnings from an EU-operator are tax free. I don't believe that the EU-court would agree that an operator such as Nordicbet or Propaganda Poker with EU-companies, EU workforce, who pay tax to EU countries can be viewed as a non-EU operator. This is also what the Swedish court realized, and the reason why the Nordicbet customer did not have to pay tax of his winnings.
Kind regards
Mathis
Interesant læsning, er der nogle af pokernets brugere der har god forståelse for skattereglerne på dette område?
Mvh,
Mambo
Er der ingen med god indsigt i skattesager, der har nogen kommentar. For mig fremstår det som ganske klart, de danske myndigheder vil have en dårlig sag, hvis de begynder at beskatte gevinster fra selskaber som NordicBet, Propaganda Poker og andre der driver forretning fra et EU-land, uafhængig om de har EU-licens eller ej..
Mvh,
Mambo