The treasurer, Jim Chalmers, has raised the prospect of stripping gambling companies of their access to government research tax concessions after Australian Tax Office figures showed they had claimed almost $90m in a single year.
Chalmers was asked at a news conference on Monday if he had a view about poker machine and betting companies being allowed to claim government tax credits for research and development.
“I have a personal view about that, which is that it’s problematic,” Chalmers said.
He indicated the government may be prepared to change it.
“I don’t have an announcement to make today in that regard,” he said. “But I saw when some of that information was released not that long ago, that that’s the sort of issue that warrants our attention. And it will receive our attention.”
For the first time earlier this month, the ATO published details of the companies claiming annual government tax credits offered to support research and development programs. In a new move aimed at transparency, the figures will now be published annually, two years after the relevant financial year ends.
The figures published this month, for the 2021-22 financial year, showed four major gambling companies claimed a total of $86.5m in credits between them. They were Tabcorp ($39.5m), Aristocrat ($22.2m), Ainsworth Game Technology ($15m) and PointsBet ($9.95m). At least two other gambling machine companies, Advance Gaming Pty Ltd ($1.84m) and Amerson Global Gaming Pty Ltd ($177,721), are listed as having also claimed credits under the scheme.
The treasurer’s comments come as the independent MP Andrew Wilkie is urging federal, state and territory governments to require gambling companies to ensure that money they receive is not the proceeds of crime.
Wilkie pointed to criminal cases of people with gambling problems who have stolen money and gambled it away.
“It’s the right thing to do to return the proceeds of crime to the victim of that crime and in fact, in this country, that is the practice,” Wilkie told ABC Radio National on Monday.
“If someone has their car stolen and it is recovered, the car is returned to them. And, you know, jewellery – it’s stolen, it’s recovered, it’s returned to them.”
Wilkie said he had tried twice to have his bill debated in federal parliament but that the major parties had refused.
Governments generally do not permit non-government legislation to proceed to debate and a vote.
Wilkie said he was not anti-gambling but “pro harm-minimisation”.
