Noonan rejects proposal to tax bigger lottery winnings

A PROPOSAL to tax lottery winnings above €500,000 has been rejected by Minister for Finance Michael Noonan. “When you have a successful model going, I think you should let it operate,” he said.

Brendan Griffin (FG, Kerry South), believed it would be a “win- win situation. The State would win, while the jackpot winner would not complain too much.”

Mr Griffin cited the €115 million EuroMillions lottery win of Dolores McNamara and said that in such a case, the State would be in for a windfall of about €20 million and the winner “would still be up by €96.5 million”.

Sinn Féin’s finance spokesman Pearse Doherty said the National Lottery used the phrase “it could be you”, but “it would be the Minister for Finance every Wednesday, Saturday and Monday”.

Insisting it was a proposal that warranted consideration, Mr Griffin said a 10 per cent tax up to €4 million on an €8 million lottery win, a frequent occurrence, would yield €350,000 for the State. A 20 per cent levy on winnings over €4 million would be worth a further €800,000 to the State, an overall total of €1.15 million.

“The jackpot winner would still go away with € 6.85 million, which I’m sure they’d be very happy with,” he said.

“Considering there are 260 National Lottery draws every year with prizes exceeding €500,000, there is considerable potential for the State to generate revenue.”

Mr Noonan said he had no plans “at present” to look at the proposal and said the lottery was a successful model that had funded many sporting activities and was now funding educational activities and health services.

The proposed Betting (Amendment) Bill includes a 1 per cent betting duty on remote or online bookmakers and a 15 per cent gross profit tax for betting exchanges.