‘SLOT Act’ Seeks to Increase Jackpot IRS Threshold to $5K

Federal legislation introduced today by leaders of the Congressional Gaming Caucus would greatly step-up the amount of money required to live won on a slot simple machine twisting to induction an IRS report.

Creatively named the SLOT Act — or “Shifting Limits on Thresholds Act” — the two-party statute law comes from US Representatives Dina Titus Flavius Vespasianus (D-Nevada) and Guy Reschenthaler (R-Pennsylvania). The deuce lawmakers cochair the Congressional Gaming Caucus.

The SLOT Act, if passed and signed into law by President Joe Biden, would step-up the jackpot taxation reporting limen from $1,200 to $5,000. That’s a more than 300% surge.

Titus and Reschenthaler contend that the electric current IRS one-armed bandit threshold, which hasn’t been touched since 1977, is long antiquated and due for a major adjustment. Ongoing rising prices has only when farther necessitated a change, they say.

Due to inflation, the keep down of jackpots hitting that threshold, triggering a shutdown of the machine and necessitating exuberant paperwork requirements for the patron, has increased dramatically,” said Titus. “This creates an unnecessary onus on the gaming industry, an economical number one wood for Southern Silver State and other communities nationwide where expansion slot machines exist.”

Industry Support

US tax laws require that a gambling casino suspend a one-armed bandit machine’s military operation any time a swordplay wins $1,200 or more during a bingle spin. In the event of that happening, cassino employees are tasked with completing a W-2G form. The IRS tax document is for taxpayers to study their yearbook play win as income.

The American Gaming Industry (AGA) naturally lent its funding for the SLOT Act. The gambling casino swap mathematical group says increasing the mandatory W-2G limen would help comfort “unnecessary administrative burdens on gambling casino operators.” The AGA concluded that the bill would develop the IRS’ regulations on slot simple machine jackpots.

Based on the US Labor Department’s Consumer Price Index, $1,200 inward 1977 is the eq of $5,567 today.

Reschenthaler, whose nation is at present nursing home to 1 of the largest gaming markets in the United States, says the $1,200 expansion slot jackpot IRS activator is pricy for casinos.

“Because the limen has non kept upward with inflation, it has resulted inward a drastic increase in reportable jackpots, which induction assess burdens for winners and compliance burdens for casinos. Increasing the threshold will annihilate this onerous cherry tape, ensuring the gaming manufacture can preserve to sustenance good-paying jobs and nurture economical ontogenesis inwards Keystone State and crossways the country,” Reschenthaler said.

Tax Concerns

Fewer mandatory W-2G forms could termination inwards less of the expansion slot winnings being in good order reported to the IRS.

Gamblers are required below law to report all of their gaming wins as “other income” on a 1040 tax form. But recreational gamblers often flunk to perform so. The IRS W-2G pattern is ane way the federal governing makes trusted it receives its part of larger wins.

The US First Lord of the Treasury Department in later(a) 2020 was ordered by United States Congress to military commission a meditate into how raising the expansion slot tax make limen mightiness impact boilers suit gaming taxes. The report is nearly a twelvemonth overdue.

“While I trust capture taxes should live self-contained on winnings, raising the limen would concentrate paperwork and ensure this is complete more efficiently,” Titus Vespasianus Augustus concluded.