Uncle Sam Decides Against IRS Reporting Changes For Casino Players
WASHINGTON, D.C. (CBS) -- America's gaming industry is breathing a huge sigh of relief after the Internal Revenue Service backed away on two proposals that could have had a serious effect on gamblers.
The feds were informally looking at lowering the $1200 threshold where slot players had to report winnings to the government down to $600. Aside from the reporting nightmare that might create, Whit Askew with the American Gaming Association, a Washington DC based gambling lobby group, suggests even the higher number might not be high enough, given that threshold was set in 1977.
"If you factor in the last 40 years for inflation, really the threshold should be more like $4700 but that's a different effort that we'll hopefully entertain through conversations down the road," Askew told KYW Newsradio.
The IRS also wanted to use your player's loyalty card to track your wins and losses, but decided against it after a big time backlash from gamblers and the gaming lobby. Roger Gros with Global Gaming Business Magazine.
"It not only intrudes into personal and privacy issues but it also brings more money out of the player, " Roger Gros, publisher of Global Gaming Business Magazine said. "So they would have to be very conscious of what they were winning at all times to balance it off what they were losing and that's pretty hard to do."
Gros, for his part, predicts the government under President-elect Donald Trump, will be far more friendly to the gaming industry.
