misscraps wrote:
The suprising thing is that with the large gambling lobby in this
country now that they are not lobbying to up the W2G law to a more
reasonable sum, like $5000 or even $10000 (there has been a LOT of
inflation since this was originally set). It costs the casino
industry a HUGE amount to process all the extra W2G paperwork.
Recognize that the gambling lobby is relatively ineffective in
achieving most types of administrative change. Gambling is largely
considered a vice on the national level. It's only on the state
level, where states stand to reap a windfall of taxes, that gambling
lobbyists have the strongest ear.
Further, there are many other areas of tax reporting where the
threshold is set below $2000 -- Misc. Income, Self Employment,
Domestic Help Wages, etc. (the latter has recently been inflation
indexed -- likely reflecting the extent to which high level government
employees are caught up in the reporting requirement).
Industry cost of compliance will likely rate low on the totem pole as
motivation for the government to change the requirements. A
convincing argument, broadly applying to all low threshold reporting,
in and outside the gambling industry, that government costs could be
reduced WITHOUT an offsetting cost from reduced taxpayer compliance
(due to non-reporting) could effect change. But it would take a far
flung effort by several diverse interests to gain an ear and
convincing data on the impact on taxpayer compliance in properly
accounting for gambling winnings.
Bottom line, realize that to the extent that gambling lobbyists pursue
this issue they use up chits they might prefer to expend elsewhere ...
such as favorable reception to the mega congomeration in the industry.
W2-G processing might be viewed, in the scheme of things, about as
visible a cost as the daily replacement of machine tickets.
- Harry