{"id":7302,"date":"2014-04-30T20:03:14","date_gmt":"2014-04-30T20:03:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/2014\/04\/30\/pennsylvania-supreme-court-sides-with-casino-over-taxes\/"},"modified":"2014-04-30T20:03:14","modified_gmt":"2014-04-30T20:03:14","slug":"pennsylvania-supreme-court-sides-with-casino-over-taxes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/2014\/04\/30\/pennsylvania-supreme-court-sides-with-casino-over-taxes\/","title":{"rendered":"Pennsylvania Supreme Court sides with casino over taxes."},"content":{"rendered":"


\nParx Casino’s legal victory may mean a reduction in taxes for all state casinos.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

\tThe state Supreme Court has decided that Parx Casino doesn’t have to pay taxes on the prizes it gives away each month \u2014 a legal win that’s likely to be shared by other casinos.<\/p>\n

\tThe ruling returns about $300,000 a year \u2014 for 2006 and 2007 \u2014 to Parx Casino owners for the prizes such as cars, sports tickets and gift cards it gives away to patrons who gamble at the Bensalem Township, Bucks County, casino. It effectively allows the casino to avoid paying the state’s 55 percent gaming tax on about $1.1 million in prizes \u2014 mainly cars \u2014 the casino gave away over those two years.<\/p>\n

\tLegal experts say it would appear that the precedent would apply to all 12 casinos \u2014 and every year \u2014 though the opinion doesn’t specify. It merely agrees with the argument made by Parx owners Greenwood Gaming and Entertainment that the casino deserves a tax credit for the prizes it gave away in those two years.<\/p>\n

\tIn essence, the court agreed with Parx’s contention that prizes such as cars were given away to patrons who were eligible for the prizes only because they’d played slot machines.<\/p>\n

\tState Department of Revenue attorneys argued that the prizes were not directly related to any specific slot machine play \u2014 as is dictated in the state’s gambling law \u2014 and therefore couldn’t be deducted.<\/p>\n

\tWith its decision \u2014 a 6-1 vote with only Justice Ronald D. Castille dissenting \u2014 the court overturns a 2009 Commonwealth Court ruling.
\n\t"We conclude that the Legislature’s inclusion of the comp exclusion is indicative of an intent to allow gaming facilities to subtract amounts, such as the promotional awards, without requiring these sums to be tied to the play of a specific slot machine at a specific time," Justice Max Baer wrote in his opinion. "Accordingly, we reverse the order of the Commonwealth Court."<\/p>\n

\tJustice Castille said he believes the ruling will cost taxpayers a lot more in the future.<\/p>\n

\t"Marketing and promotional expenses are simply a cost of doing business i.e., business expenses, for casinos," Castille wrote in his dissent. "The unintended effect of the Majority Opinion will be to encourage increased casino giveaways, subsidized by the taxpayers."<\/p>\n

\tThe decision did remand the matter back to Commonwealth Court, where Parx will likely have to go through the formality of showing that its giveaways were only for people who had gambled at the casino.<\/p>\n

\tLegal experts say it will likely result in a change in the way all casinos are allowed to file their taxes every year. Even then, it figures to have a small impact relative to the more than $1.4 billion in taxes the casino collectively paid last year.<\/p>\n

\tAt Parx, for example, the roughly $300,000 annual tax credit it expects from the change is more than offset by the $200 million it pays annually in taxes on the money people lose every year on its slot machines.<\/p>\n

\tParx is the state’s most lucrative casino, just ahead of Sands Resort Casino Bethlehem. Even if every casino in the state racked up $300,000 in annual tax credits on its giveaways, it would amount to a state taxpayer loss of less than $4 million a year.<\/p>\n

\tThe value of promotional prizes statewide is unclear, but the bulk of it is in monthly care giveaways. It’s also unclear whether all casinos will be able to cash in by filing tax appeals for their giveaways since 2009.<\/p>\n

\n

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Parx Casino’s legal victory may mean a reduction in taxes for all state casinos. The state Supreme Court has decided that Parx Casino doesn’t have to pay taxes on the prizes it gives away each month \u2014 a legal win…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":36,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7302","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-latest-casino-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7302","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/36"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7302"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7302\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7302"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7302"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7302"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}