OREANDA-NEWS. May 29, 2008. At their session on Thursday, the deputies of Tomsk region doubled the tax rate for gaming tables: the tax per table will increase from 50 to 100 thousand rubles.

“The increase has resulted from the public opinion on gambling operations and amounts of tax rates in other regions”, the press representative explained.

According to Vladimir Ponomarenko, the Chairman of the Duma`s Budget and Finance Committee, the tax rate per gaming table is 60 thousand rubles in Tumen region and 85 thousand rubles in the Republic of Altay. Throughout the rest of the neighbourhood – in Novosibirsk, Sverdlovsk, Kemerovo, Omsk, Tchelyabinsk and Altay regions – the tax rate per gaming table is 125 thousand rubles a month.

The press representative said that the tax rate had been determined based on the tax statistic reports. However, during the session, deputies Ivan Klein and Oleg Shuteev raised an issue of increasing the tax further.

At present 16 casinos (with 160 gaming tables) operate in Tomsk region. After the tax increase the monthly addition to the regional budget will amount to 8 million rubles, and by the end of 2008 the region will have received additional 48 million rubles of tax revenues.