The Italian government has accused the subsidiary of PokerStars, Halfords Media Italy with tax fraud and evasion. The government claims that €300 million in revenues has been hidden and transferred to Maltese and Isle of Man bank accounts.
Italy started their segregated online poker market in 2009, currently there are 7 licensed online rooms in Italy, and PokerStars.it is by far the biggest. Last week PokerStars.it averaged 1.700 cash game players which is enough for 5th place on the global poker traffic leaderboard.
It’s clear that PokerStars is making massive profits in the Italian market, but according to the Italian equivalent of the IRS, they are not willing to share this revenue with the government.
According to them, between 2009 – 2014 the company hid €300 million in revenues from the government and moved the money to bank accounts in Malta and the Isle of Man.
Online providers have to pay 20% taxes after their income according to their licenses, that would mean PokerStars has missed out on paying €60 million in taxes. The government claims that this was planned and that Halfords Media has manipulated the data to make the revenues appear in countries where the tax laws are lighter.
Eric Hollreiser, Head of Corporate Communications at PokerStars has said the following:
"We have been working together with the Italian government since our launch seven years ago. They have been inspecting us for years and we have always cooperated and paid €120 million in taxes in this period."
He has also stated that they do not agree with some points of the legislation but that he hopes that issue will be resolved as soon as possible. The service has not been affected by this, PokerStars.it is still up.
The Italian tax authority has been inspecting big companies in the last few months, for example Google, Apple and Amazon have also been under inspection.
