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Mayor Gary Grasso confirmed the donations from Filippo “Gigi” Rovito after local outlet Patch contacted him to ask about contributions from two Burr Ridge businesses owned by Rovito, Capri Ristorante and the Are We Live nightclub.
The mayor said he was not aware of the contributions before the publication actually got in touch with him.
“Given the pending Indiana case, I have asked my Treasurer to return the donations,” Grasso said in an email to Patch. His campaign reported the contributions to the Illinois State Board of Elections on September 14.
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“We saw that they had entered football and advertising, and they have political and economic weight. Understanding that Congress would not prohibit the activity, we decided to put the brakes on and establish the rules.
“It’s not that I want to collect taxes because I need the money. I want to collect taxes for the sake of fairness: if a company sells cars, it pays taxes; if it sells drinks, it pays taxes. If it’s authorised to operate, it has to pay.”
In the interview, the minister mentioned the tax changes proposed by the Ministry of Finance, and more recently, the ban on beneficiaries of social welfare programmes from gambling.
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A CEO of a prominent operator in the DRC last year told iGB the tax system largely operates on a declaration basis of how much operators report to the government.
“Operators do pay, yes, but they pay whatever suits them,” they said. “In other words, we effectively pay what benefits us. All the while, the state has no means of monitoring its regulatory policies.”
In response to these issues, earlier this year the DRC Ministry of Finance outlined plans for a new gambling monitoring platform to enhance its supervision of the sector.
