PX, I'm referring to the 50% deposit tax they are going to make players in opt out states pay to deposit to unlicensed sites. That is really the biggest part of the bills I am against. I think I probably speak for a lot of people saying that this is by far the worst part of the bills. Removing it would gain a lot more support for the bill from players.

Number 8 that you provided in your examples above, that is already in the McDermott bill, and it is a whopping 50% of your deposit to an unlicensed site. For players unlucky enough to live in opt out states, this is a killer.

Of course I would rather have #9!!!!! That is what most of this anti-legislation clamoring is about! We want the 50% deposit tax to unlicensed sites out of the McDermott bill.

I agree with you there. In fact, in my first postings about the bill last year I stated that this provision is the only one I consider to be a deal-breaker. But I think the 50% deposit penalty tax could remain as long as the liability for it rests solely on the sites and not the players. Eliminating it completely is better, but not bottom-line necessary imo.

So, it's enough to change this provision in the bill:

to this:

Of course, if a foreign site is going to operate outside the law by serving US players without getting a license it is unlikely they will actually pay the 50% penalty tax.

I still think a tax on rake paid is best (not sure which of your numbers that would fit into). For example, it would be a simple 8% rakeback to the government, similar to what affiliates used to get from FTP. This is what was proposed in California, and I think it was one of the few things they got right in their bill. But assuming we move forward with a deposit tax, then I think it needs to be on net deposits (deposits less withdrawals); otherwise, I have concerns it will have a bad effect on mid-stakes and high-stakes cash games.

PX its the following provision that we want changed.

HR 4976

"(d) Unauthorized Bets or Wagers- There is hereby imposed a fee in an amount equal to 50 percent of all funds deposited into an account that can be used for placing a bet or wager within the meaning of Section 5362(1) of title 31, United States Code, with any person that is not authorized pursuant to section 5382 of that title. Such tax is due by the end of each calendar month with respect to deposits during the preceding month."

It seems like what you suggested above (in provision c) is simply talking about the license fee. See post 2 in this thread, the Engineer even points out that it needs to be changed.

Wait a minute are you telling me that if provision c is not changed, players in opt out states will have to pay the sites license fee, if the site they are playing on doesn't pay it?

Also I have a question about this:

"SEC. 6. WAGER TAX APPLICABLE TO FEDERAL ONLINE GAMBLING ACTIVITIES.

(a) In General- Subsection (a) of section 4401 is amended to read as follows:

‘(a) Wagers-

‘(1) AUTHORIZED WAGERS- There shall be imposed on any wager authorized under Federal law or the law of the State in which accepted an excise tax equal to 0.25 percent of the amount of such wager.

‘(2) UNAUTHORIZED WAGERS- There shall be imposed on any wager not described in paragraph (1) an excise tax equal to 2 percent of the amount of such wager.’.

(b) Effective Date- The amendment made by subsection (a) shall apply to wagers made after December 31, 2010."

This makes players in opt out states playing on unlicensed sites pay a 2% tax on any wager? Is that what I am reading here???

If everything I'm reading is true:

1. Players in opt out states will have to pay 50% tax on every deposit they make, due at the end of the calendar month (I don't understand how changing provision c would change the 50% tax due by players in provision d).

2. Players in opt out states will have to pay the license fee of a site they are playing on if the site doesn't acquire a license, and of course all of these sites would not have licenses so we would be paying all the license fees.

3. Players in opt out states will have to pay a tax of 2% of every wager made to an unlicensed site. Or are the excise taxes described in section 6 payable by the sites?

Please tell me I am badly mistaken and misread the bill.

how does your seat at the table compare to Harrah's?

You are mistaken. Let me try to straighten it out:

Provision D, as you quoted above, imposes a penalty fee of 50% of deposits for play on unlicensed sites (which are the ones that would be accessible in opt-out states). This provision does not state who is liable for this fee. It only states that this fee is "imposed".

Provision C, as I quoted above, in the first paragraph, states that the sites are liable for the "Internet gambling license fee". This is defined in the same section as the 2% fee/tax on deposits. (It is not the yearly administrative fee sites pay to apply for and hold a license.)

Provision C, in the second paragraph, is rather convoluted but in essence states that both the player and the site is liable for any deposit fees for play on unlicensed sites. This would include the 50% penalty fee that appears after it in Provision D. (It might also include the 2% fed fee, depending on the interpretation.) If this one paragraph of Provision C is eliminated, no players would be liable for any fee/tax (other than normal income taxes).

The Wager Tax provision you quoted does not apply to poker (neither rPoker nor iPoker). You have to read the existing statutes that this provision amends to catch that it only applies to certain gambling games - roulette, craps and lotteries, iirc. It is of no concern to us.

To reiterate, I think both Provision D and the second paragraph of Provision C should be eliminated, if possible. However, I would be okay with it if only the second paragraph of Provision C were taken out.

Regardless of who's liable for the 50% penalty on unlicensed sites, isn't 50% simply way too high for a site to operate without either charging huge rake or high deposit fees?

You must be talking about an earlier iteration of the CA legislation. The most recent CA bill by Senator Wright had no such tax. Instead, it proposes that hub operators bid for one of the three contracts offered by the state, including the percentage of gross revenues (up to 20% max) they would pay to the state. No doubt the three winning bids would all offer the full 20%.

As to a rake on tax for the federal legislation, that would fall in as a specialized form of my #1, tax on revenues. I suppose it is feasible to implement and keep track of, and assign according to the state of residence of each player, in a fashion similar to tracking rakeback.

There would have to be some standardization of how rake is assigned to players for taxing purposes. For instance, if you have a $300 pot which rakes for a $3 max, does each player who contributed to the pot until it reached the $3 max get assigned the same split of the rake, or does it get assigned according to the proportion that each player contributed towards the $300 total?

This method also means that many players will be paying tax on earned bonuses/promotions. That is, any bonus money that gets played before withdrawal will generate more tax.

When you consider the amount of times money is played through before it is withdrawn, I think a deposit tax will actually work out to be less taxation than a rake tax in most cases (that is, 8% deposit tax< 8% tax on gross rake). Higher stakes (high deposit amounts) are the exception, but a reasonable cap on the deposit tax would level that out. I can see either one as workable, and decent choices from a player's standpoint.

Sure. But the legislation might need some sort of penalty on unlicensed sites to be able to get the votes needed for passage. And it's way better than criminalizing them.

As far as huge rake or deposit fees, do you think the foreign sites that operate without a license will actually pay the 50% penalty fee? They'll be breaking the law by offering play to the US in the first place, so I doubt they'll think twice about skipping the fee as well (which is no doubt also the logic behind making the player equally liable for it).

Its not high considering they operate lawlessly. Super Users and House Bots on unregulated sites will cover that 50% rather quickly

Does hr4976 getting through ways and means mean that its a lock to get a vote in the house? Or is it still pretty likely that it gets through Ways but still falls short in the House?

In the California bill, the definition of "gross revenues" is stated as follows:

"Gross revenues" means the total amount of money
received by a hub operator from registered players for
participation in authorized games. Gross
revenues shall not include player deposits and wagers.

My interpretation of that definition is that "gross revenues" = rake.

Assigning rake would be very simple. You would simply use the dealt or contributed method (as is currently done today by the sites), preferably contributed as that is a fairer representation, imo.

PPA is lobbying to remove liability of this from players. We issued a press release and have language in our letter to Congress (the one to Ways and Means Committee members) seeking its removal.

We're doing all we can on this front.

It's not bad at all. We been at this for a few years and are spending as much on lobbying as they are. It's certainly better than it would be if we had sat this fight out.

Myturn2raise and Leapfrog, I think it's time to let it go.

The big question is if the PPA will withdraw support for the bill if its not removed. If its not taken out, I dont think there is a great outcome. I think we have to withdraw support, but it will certainly leave us in a weaker position.

Why would we want to suppress debate and discussion of issues? That's the antithesis of the purpose of this forum.

+1

As long as they're not being trollish about it, there's nothing wrong with voicing their concerns here. I think hearing the opposing viewpoints and TE/PX's counter-arguments has helped me get a much clearer picture of the whole situation.

I wasn't saying that we shouldn't support the bill because of the 50% tax on unlicensed, I just thought you guys were being disingenuous when you talked about making sure that players weren't liable. Now I understand what the deal is--unlicensed sites won't pay the tax.

We also don't want to establish a precedent making players the focus of enforcement efforts.

Maybe, maybe not, depending on the implementation details. For instance, if a site gives rakeback maybe that wouldn't be included in the gross revenues figure as it is a direct rebate of the player revenue. Or, if a player used reward points or a satellite entry to pay for a tournament entry, there would be no tax on the entry fee under a "gross revenue" tax (no money was received), but there would be under a "rake" tax (rake was paid). They are pretty close, but there might be some little differences, depending on final regulations.

The biggest difference, in terms of the federal legislation, is the implementation and tracking of the states' portion of the taxation. Sites won't be able to just say each month, "Our total revenue was X, and here is 8% for tax." Each site would have to track every player's contribution to each rake, so the proper amount can be apportioned to the state of residence of each player. And this has to be done in a way that can be audited by the government.

The rake tax is much more complex than a deposit tax, which means there will be a lot more room for fudging or errors, and therefore a lot more expenditure on implementation and compliance.

By the way, I think there was a lot that was right in the CA legislation, especially in the detailed provisions for consumer protections. I'd love to see that carried over to the federal bill, which has little detail spelled out for these protections, leaving it to Treasury regulations (or the state/tribal licensing authorities ultimately used by the Treasury).

You may be right that a deposit tax is simpler, but given the ease with which rakeback providers currently operate and calculate rakeback per individual player, my belief is that a rake tax is perfectly doable and not overly burdensome. Further, the UK does not tax deposits, but rather taxes gross profits, which is basically gross revenues less certain allowable deductions.

I'll just reiterate that a deposit tax will be inherently distortive, as it will not necessarily have any correlation with the underlying activity it is intending to tax. A rake tax, on the other hand, would correlate very nicely with the underlying activity.

All that said, I guess a deposit tax would be ok if it was netted for withdrawals, but of course, that would also make it somewhat more complex and more difficult to adminster. Also, it would be ok if the rate was so low that it would not be distortive to the mid-high stakes cash games. I'm not sure what level would be low enough for that, but my fear is that 8% would not be a low enough threshold.

Thank you for trying with this. And I am also appreciative that you guys are trying to fight against setting precedent to go after players.

PX, thanks for clearing up the other concerns I had.

piano,
FYI, the sites currently pay ridiculous fees to payment processors who are willing to help US players deposit (I've heard 15% before, but I think 10%ish is standard). So, in effect a deposit "tax" has already been tested, and it works fine.

They'll probably end up paying slightly higher fees in the end with this tax because payment processors will probably still charge something like 2-5% (what credit card companies typically charge retailers iirc), but the sites get other huge cost-cutting benefits like lower withdrawal fees for US players and no more massive seizures of cash from the DoJ. Plus, they get a ton more traffic.

So, I think the PPA's line claims games will not be harmed by this totally checks out. In theory, rake should actually go down and things like deposit bonuses and other rewards should go up if this bill ever takes effect. However, with sticky pricing there might just be no real change (which would still be awesome, imho).

A deposit tax also makes sense because it's extremely simple. Any other type of tax gets really complicated when you consider that this bill applies to many games other than poker, and methods that are really simple for some games make no sense for others.

I think a good example would be a bet on Ivey winning the WSOP ME in 2011. What is the rake on that? Is the treasury department supposed to estimate Ivey's edge over the field or should they take the site's word for it ("We think our edge is actually negative for that. We're doing it as a promotion for our players!")? If they just decide to tax net profits instead, when do those profits come in? If the profits on a bet made in Q4 of 2010 don't count until the bet is over in Q3 of 2011, that lets sites float tax money for a year and gives the gov't a much higher chance of getting shafted by bankruptcy. If you try to count the profits in Q4 2010, then you're back to the same problem of having to estimate Ivey's edge over the field.

Even just taxing poker based on rake is slightly messy. You're right that the sites have figured out a way to make it work with affiliates so that everybody's roughly happy, but they've all done it in different ways because there's no clear way to define how much rake a specific player has paid in a cash game. I don't think the congress or the treasury wants to worry about the minutia of stuff like that since that would require hiring outside experts that are unbiased, and they certainly don't want to leave it to the sites to decide how to define rake paid per player.

Edit: I guess the much shorter answer is "If the sites don't have a problem with the taxes in the bill, you definitely shouldn't" :P.