The IRS seeking public input on the possibility of someday lowering the amount at which casinos must report slot winning

In Wisconsin it is all taxable, so this new law would be horrible. Every session is taxable, lose $500...lose $400....lose $600......win $600 your Wisconsin total would be a $600 win, so for us again this new rule would be horrible!!!! Wisconsin is a tax hell, they want to tax the same dollar 10 times, that's the WI way.

In many table games (Caribbean Stud Poker and Pai Gow Poker), one can earn tens if not hundreds of thousands with a $1 bet.

Oh, I bet the tax man would be there with paperwork for that win!

It kinda makes sense, a little. It just seems that income is income and taxes should be levied if one were to follow the generality of the tax law. Not that I would ever follow the generality of the tax law.

Truthfully, I don't want to know the real answer. Not officially. I will NOT be broaching this subject with my accountant. That's why I ask the experts here.

Insanity. What was the purpose of a threshold? So there wouldn't be excess paperwork on small wins. Now they want to go in the wrong direction.

If they set it at 1,200 in 1977, they should index it to inflation so the materiality remains the same. Today that $1200 in 1977 dollars would be $4,841.48. Round it up to 5K and that should be the new reporting threshold.

That presumes that the level set in 1977 is the correct one.

We've had 38 years of increased recordkeeping efficiency since then. I don't think keeping the threshhold at $1200 would be onerous. I also wouldn't mind if it hopped up to, say, $2,000.

Au contraire' , I won 1600 bucks last trip on the new flush high game at PHo on a twelve dollar bet. 1500 of that was on the 3 bucks I had put on the bonus.

Really? How has the process of creating W2G's for $1,200+ VP wins become more efficient? The machine still locks up. A casino representative still manually takes your ID and manually issues you a piece of paper. You are still required to manually keep a notebook with wins and losses as they may or may not accept a casino statement as proof of net. Now if the machines could do fingerprint recognition and issue you a single W2G at the end of your winning trip, that would be a different story.

No, that has nothing to do with it.

At tables, there is no electronic system (yet) of capturing a single gambling win for tax purposes. When a player carries 10K worth of chips from table to cashier, there is no system that determine whether the 10K was won from one dealt hand or multiple smaller wins over time. Table play is tracked from the standpoint of buy-in, average bet, and amount cashed out, etc., i.e. your table rating, but not for taxation. Let's hope this never comes about. Talk about slowing down a game.

Not all gambling wins/amounts are taxed the same. Keno and Horserace betting are two that come to mind, and there are others. I can't remember the Keno limit.

in Horseracing it is 300 x dollar bet. In other words, a $2 bet on a horse that results in payout of $600 or more generates a W2-G at the window. You can cash in multiple horserace tickets that add up to 10 grand or a million, and no W2-G will be generated, unless one of those tickets pays $300 x your $1 bet. And only on that ticket will a W2-G be generated. This is also electronically captured. When the "teller" punches in your winning ticket on which the winnings exceed 300 to 1, the machine pops it back up and reads out "Redeem at IRS Window only." The teller cannot pay you for that ticket, though he could pay you for those that don't exceed the limit. When you take your taxable ticket to the IRS window, they punch it in, it computes the win, then the teller begins the paperwork/W2-G.

The casino flunky who walks over to initiate the paperwork is just one part of the process. And is probably the part that's changed the least.

It's the process of accounting, retaining, and conveying the paperwork to the IRS that has been completely revolutionized over the past 38 years.



Hell, VP barely existed in 1977 when that threshhold was set.

If $1,200 makes sense in 2015, fine. But we shouldn't keep it just because that's what it was way back when Gerald Ford (!) was in office.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but the reporting requirements discriminate against those who own their homes outright or who rent. Because gamblers who keep good records can right off their losses against W2-Gs, but the moment they do that on a Schedule A they lose their standard deduction. To people with significant mortgage interest that isn't an issue, otherwise it usually is.

Correct?