BANNING ONLINE GAMBLING AS A CONSEQUENCE OF TAX LEGISLATION: (NON) JUSTIFIED RESTRICTIONS

Abstract

Moral and moral values are increasingly questioned in today's society when it comes to a multiplicity of vices that are becoming available to a larger number of people. Gambling, as a form of hazardous activity, is reaching every space and every liberal country through digitalization. Internet and online business have made it possible to spread gambling and thus to increase the number of participants in such games. Apart from some basic doubts about the morality of such games, especially
regarding young players, there also appears the issue of state interests in monopoly systems ordered by national laws. A policy driven by state interests has paved the way for restricting gambling providers by blocking those providers or blocking the access to the content of certain webpages. The linked ban is debatable at least from the aspect of the constitutionality of the mentioned measure. Despite of this, measures
prohibiting access to a certain internet content should be evaluated individually, in accordance with the principle of proportionality and in line with the requirement of legal certainty. This paper therefore addresses the need to introduce such a measure in the Croatian tax legislation with comparative examples of justifications for this measure and also deals with the problem of its possible abuses by the Croatian Tax Administration, thereby subtly introducing the complete control of the content of websites.