We all know tax laws can be changed by lobbying members of Congress.
Helmut points out one of several strong arguments for changing the
treatment of gambling winnings. Everyone should pay taxes on any
"real" winnings that exceed losses, but right now there is a very
serious "fairness" issue which politicians often love to get behind.
Gambling winnings unfairly inflate adjusted gross income which affects
those who do not itemize (mostly lower income and middle income
without a mortgage interest). It also affects upper income by pushing
people into Alternative Minimum Tax.
There is also a huge non-compliance problem for w-2Gs and also for all
gambling winnings that are under the w-2G limit. Remember all
gambling winnings are to be reported, but everyone knows this is a
joke even to most honest taxpayers.
Netting losses against wins and reporting the "net" profit would
simplify the current situation. The IRS Commissioner has publicly
stated that simplification and fairness are key goals to improving tax
compliance.
The writers on this group could make an effort to alert their readers
to consider asking their elected officials to change the tax law and
tax "real" winnings and treat gambling winnings like any other income.
At least educate your readers about the possibility of change.
For the millions of taxpayers who visited a casino last year I would
bet 99.9% are unaware of this issue until they get lucky enough to get
a W-2G. If more people knew and complained the law would be changed.
The net change in total US income taxes paid would be too tiny to
matter to the budget process. Some tax hungry states might find it
difficult to give up their jackpot taxes, but the key change needs to
be the federal tax code and most states will follow.
I will be writing my elected officials for an explanation of this
"unfair" tax and requesting that they change it.
Chris
We should not even think about tax cheats on this forum, much less
talk about it. How can a person be a tax cheat when he loses more than
he wins? With practically all machines gone which paid more than 100 %
back on denomination higher than 25 cents it is impossible to win.
No, the question we have here is that because of the W2-G's our
Adjusted Gross Income goes up so that the older players get their
Social Security taxed up to 80 % and also lose all their age related
tax benefits.
Of course most of you guys may not care about this because you are
not affected, but don't worry, this problem will eventually catch up
with you too. In fact, you may be already affected without realizing it.
HW
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From: b.glazer@...
To: vpFREE@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Thursday, May 17, 2007 5:24 PM
Subject: [vpFREE] Re: United Front
> 12a. United Front
> Date: Wed May 16, 2007 8:57 pm ((PDT))
>
>
> So here's my proposal: You yourself e-mail your federal and state
> politicians (their favorite form of communication) and urge them
to up the
> W2-G limit to $5,000. The feds addresses are easily found at
www.usa.gov.,
> the State's likewise, www. (state name). gov.
>
Of course, everyone responding to this realizes that W2Gs are just
a form, and don't change the laws regarding the taxability of gambling
income exceeding gambling losses. No matter what the W2G threshhold
is, you are supposed to pay taxes on your winnings.
···
--- In vpFREE@yahoogroups.com, "Helmut" <hewolf@...> wrote:
----- Original Message -----
I'm sure we don't have a bunch of tax cheats here, do we?
--BG
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