Senate of Oregon votes against gambling loss tax deduction

In recent news, just last Monday the senate of Oregon has voted to drop gambling loss tax deduction. This move was made in correspondence with an effort to favour people with tuition fees by giving them tax deductions, let’s take a look at it. 

If you follow the latest online gambling news, you can find more articles about current political stances on gambling. Feel free to check it out. 

The Oregon Senate has voted to eliminate gambling loss tax deduction

The senate of Oregon decided to stamp out gambling loss tax deductions in the state. The Senate Bill 212 – which was passed after a 16-10 vote in the Senate: “alters the state’s tax code to better reflect Oregon’s values”.

The code removes Oregon from the Federal codes on gambling loss tax reductions from the 2017 Congress bills.

Breaking down these tax reductions, basically it’s about gambling taxpayers, who can pay tax from their losses, provided they are in profit with their overall winnings and pay tax on those as well. Without any winnings the tax deduction won’t count, as it will only see an exploit in the system whereby gamblers could simply “not report” their winnings and win them tax free, then counting their losses, pay off their taxes and thereby “winning twice”.

Needless to say, this bill of taxable and deductible gambling profits and losses is a controversial rule, which only appears in the U.S. and in Germany (since 2012).

The Oregon Senator Mark Hass said:

“Oregonians value education more than protecting gamblers from being able to claim their losses,” 

“This is a disconnection from the federal tax code to better reflect Oregon’s values and take ownership over how we prioritize who should be at the front of the line for tax breaks.”

The following bills were made to cover tax deductions for tuition fees:
Filers with adjusted gross incomes below $80,000 – or $160,000, if filing jointly – would be allowed to deduct up to $460 in qualified tuition expenses from their state taxes. Filers with gross incomes below $65,000 – or $135,000, if filing jointly – would be allowed to deduct up to $920 in qualified tuition expenses from state taxes. No deduction is currently available to any filer.

Mark Hass continues:

“We should be encouraging Oregonians to go to school, and make it more cost effective for students, instead of giving tax breaks to gamblers,”

“The federal tax code doesn’t reflect our shared priorities and values as a state, and so we need to go our own way on this.” 

What do you think about gambling loss tax deduction, are they a helping hand for taxpaying gamblers or are the other countries right in making any winnings or losses in gambling non-taxable and non-deductible exchanges? Let us know in the comment section below.