Q: As a Canadian citizen I understand that any slot win over
$1,200 triggers a 1042-S and I've filed a non-resident return
3 or 4 times to recover tax money withheld from jackpots.
Before my most recent trip, I did some research on the topic
and discovered what I thought was the magic form, the W-8BEN.
The way I understood it was that if I triggered a 1042-S, all
I had to do was hand this form to the payer and they wouldn't
take the 30%. When I hit a $4,000 royal, I was pretty excited,
for the win and to be able to whip out the magic form. It
didn't work! I explained up and down the purpose of the form
and was sure it was going to work but the bosses told me,
pardon the pun, NO DICE! Eventually, I just had to give it up.
I'll get the money back, which will make for a nice windfall
in January, but I really thought I had the problem licked.
Does anybody know what the actual rules are?Read the answer here:
Whenever a casino "supervisor" refuses to follow the IRS rules, a little pressure doesn't hurt -- such as a threat to write the IRS and tell them that XX casino is not following the regulations. I've used this to get them to accept Form 4754 and issue separate W2Gs when two or more of us have pooled our money for a trip and one of us hits a W2G jackpot; the instructions on the back of the form don't QUITE say the casino MUST do this, but it's pretty darn close, and if you read it to them, you can make them think that they absolutely must issue separate W2Gs.
I don't like to get nasty, but I also don't like to be held responsible for the full tax if I'm the one in a group that hits the W2G event, and neither do my friends -- I know we can "fix" the situation with a letter attached to all our returns explaining what happened, but it's not as neat and tidy as having the separate W2Gs.
Don't know if the rules for Canadians are as described above, haven't checked the link yet.
--BG
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