Study Shows Online Gambling Regulation Worth Billions to U.S.
PricewaterhouseCoopers performed an accounting analysis on the possible effects if Congressman Jim McDermott's online gambling regulatio bill were passed, and discovered that revenue for the United States could fall anywhere between $8.7 billion to $42.8 billion over the next ten years.The Internet Gambling Regulation and Tax Enforcement Act of 2008 is a stronger version of a bill introduced last year, including provisions to ensure proper tax collection.
The new bill, if passed, would supersede the clumsy, confusing, and ultimately unenforceable Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006, pushed through by Bill Frist on his way out of Congress.
Rather than prohibiting online casinos and wagering, the new proposal would require online operators to provide gamblers with an end-of-year winnings and losses statement, and establish a 2% licensing fee to be paid by online sites to offset the competitive advantage in overhead costs over land-based casinos.
McDermott said, "To be clear, these are not mostly new taxes: the bulk of the revenues generated would come from taxes required under existing law. This is simply a framework to collect taxes on existing activity that is currently unregulated, unsupervised and underground.
Before us is a tremendous opportunity to protect consumers and recoup billions of dollars that should be collected by the Internal Revenue Service."
The concept of a law that taxes online gambling and protects consumers, rather than attempting to make them criminals, is long overdue. Hopefully, the federal government will lose its myopia and pass legislation that would be well-received both by those who respect individual liberties and by all citizens, who would benefit from a potentially gigantic source of revenue.
