Some time in the past, my mom obtained a letter from the IRS stating she owed tax (plus penalties and curiosity) on her jackpot winnings at a Delaware casino in a previous yr. They included a duplicate of the W2G type that she (in response to them) had uncared for to assert on her Federal tax return. Mother had not been to that Delaware casino in that yr as a result of there at the moment are greater than sufficient casinos in our state the place you may play and lose your cash.
My mom didn’t know the place to start to get this resolved, so she referred to as for my assist. As an accountant, my first thought was to see a duplicate of the receipt the winner had signed when she collected her jackpot. Mother referred to as and requested the accounting division to fax a duplicate of the receipt to me.
It clearly was not my mom’s signature on the receipt. After a second name to the casino, we discovered a number of issues about how the accounting is dealt with at casinos Star Vegas.
Seems there’s one other particular person with the identical name as my mom, however a distinct deal with and Social Safety number. This particular person and my mom had each signed up for the casino’s ‘membership’ card, and I suppose they every needed to provide their Social Safety number. That is the card you set into the slot machine you are taking part in that’s supposed to trace your winnings and supply factors without spending a dime meals, and so on.
Nevertheless, it seems to be just like the casino had not bothered to confirm the right SSN after they crammed out the paperwork for the winner, and subsequently filed an incorrect W2G to the Inside Income Service for that jackpot. In the meantime, my mom was being billed for the tax on the winnings, plus penalties and curiosity, whereas the real winner was not, and the clock saved ticking on the curiosity till this was resolved.
One other name to the casino was just a little irritating, because the accounting division had no idea how you can clear up the issue. (As an accountant, I knew they must ship in a corrected W2G underneath my mom’s SSN stating no revenue, together with a brand new W2G stating the earnings for the winner underneath the right SSN.) We referred to as the IRS and so they confirmed the necessity for the casino to file these two kinds, after which we needed to name the casino to clarify how they wanted to do their job to appropriate this.
Weeks later, Mother obtained a corrected W2G from the casino and I wrote a letter to IRS explaining the state of affairs and requested for the penalties and curiosity be reversed. Finally the case with the IRS was resolved, however not with out a whole lot of frustration and time. The casino didn’t appear too fazed with the error – they did apologize, however we’ll by no means go there once more. I had Mother name them to cancel her ‘membership’ card so this would not occur again-to her, a minimum of.
The lesson discovered right here is… for those who do get pleasure from taking part in the slots or desk games at a casino, do remember to preserve monitor of your winnings. If it is obtainable to you, ask the casino for a listing of your year-to-date winnings on the finish of December to verify it agrees together with your precise figures, and query something that appears fallacious. I’m certain there are jackpot winners who wind up paying tax on cash they did not win.
Do not let the casinos gamble together with your taxes!
Copyright © 2014 Kay Swann
