irs looking 4 cash

30 years ago a bill was passed to tax winnings from slots and bingo and race track bets,but tables games were left out.Now as of 3/4/08 any tourny win over $5000 must be taxed 25%.Now is this the irs getting gready or is the usa in real desperate need of cash?

I feel sorry for the next WSOP winner lol good bye 3-4 Million dollars striaght off the bat.

Um, you have always had to pay taxes on your income. The new law simply puts more responsibility on the casinos to report wins to the IRS. The law to actually take the 25% at the end of the tournament was not passed.

I work at a casino and we have never reported wins from a table game that was less then $10,000.It is a tribal casino so maybe the law is different for them.But i do know that if we start reporting wins of $5000 or more people will simply cut themselves off befor they get there.....lol

You definitely were supposed to report these winnings even previously, and I'm sure the US govt would be well aware of a WSOP winner not reporting the massive income (see Richard Hatch not paying taxes on Survivor winnings).

As for the US, govt spending is high and they continue to try to find new ways to squeeze money out of tax payers. They certainly don't "need" the money (even with the high deficit).

Like i said its a tribal casino they pretty much make up their own rules as they go along........lol

A new law, but not much of a change. For those that have played Live Tourny Poker (and won), you will know that the majority of Casinos always made filing the IRS form W2g mandatory to collect winnings...the same form that racetracks, etc make you complete for a big win.

The Card Rooms were following a long ago agreement between Binions and the IRS, although the application of the agreement has been haphazard and subject to disagreement, so that some rooms were not issuing the Forms in certain corcumstances when other rooms were. Some poker rooms did not issue W2Gs for MTTs at all.

Add in the fact a lot of people didnt even pay the taxes after the form was completed and sent in to the IRS....

And the Govt decided it had to fix up the rules.

The whole tax issue on gambling in the US is a bunch of POOP anyway and really can unfailrly screw the professional and recreational gambler