This Thursday, November 7, is announced as a “dead day” by those involved in the horse racing industry. A demonstration is being held in Paris to defend the future of the sector. Trainers and breeders are concerned about a plan to increase taxes on horse racing betting. Reactions from professionals in Cagnes-sur-Mer.
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Budget discussions continue in the National Assembly. A project to tax sports betting has been put on the table: it would increase the percentage taxed by the State from 6% to 15%. Professionals in the sector are up in arms and assure that if this taxation were to see the light of day, it would simply lead to the “disappearance of the sector”. An amendment has since been adopted to exclude horse racing betting from the tax increase, but the sector nevertheless wants to continue to maintain pressure.
“If this tax passes, many of us will not make it”warns Jean-Charles Ferron. This trainer from Cagnes-sur-Mer assures us: trainers must face increasing burdens on the costs of food, care and boarding for their horses. These professionals in the horse racing sector receive allowances from horse racing income (which are paid to them by parent companies which in turn receive this money directly from the PMU).
These allowances, which constitute their source of income, could drastically decrease in the event of taxation. “Our benefit revenue could drop by 15 to 20% if taxes increase by 6 to 15%” he insists. The coach recalls the dependence of players in the sector on these allowances, recalling that the increase in taxation could risk pushing many professionals into a difficult situation. “If it passes, many will not make it.”
For Damien Desbordes, representative of trotter trainers from Cagnes-sur-mer and present today at the Parisian demonstration, this new tax represents a direct threat to the survival of the sector. “It’s not a question of anger, we are caught by the throat” he said, denouncing an economic context where “at the end of the year, I am close to zero. With the taxes announced, I will end up in the negative.”
This prospect frightens small and medium-sized coaches like Damien Desbordes, who declares that he pays himself a salary of “only 600 euros per month”. According to him, such taxes would have consequences for the entire sector: “If we are taxed 40 million euros more, that will represent 13% less in benefits. We will no longer be able to work.”
Professionals are hoping for a quick and definitive response from the government. If the Minister of the Budget said he was opposed to this reform, the vagueness persists, leaving the sector in uncertainty. “We are waiting for a clear answer”claims Desbordes, who recalls that the losses would not only concern the coaches, but the entire sector, estimating that the government could lose “four billion euros” in the event of a collapse of the horse racing industry.
The horse racing sector currently generates 40,000 jobs in France.
