William Bryan: “the difficulty in bringing the issues we are voting on today before the Senate has resulted in an unfortunate…”

“the difficulty in bringing the issues we are voting on today before the Senate has resulted in an unfortunate parliamentary situation, where the bill is not open to amendments. While I generally support the bill, and plan to vote in favor of the bill today, I would have preferred the bill to be open to amendment, both to add other desirable provisions, particularly to the small business tax relief title, and to offer amendments to strike provisions which I believe are inappropriate. In particular, there is one provision which I am strongly opposed to: the provision which imposes income tax withholding on winnings from keno and bingo. Under current law, income taxes are withheld only for winnings where the odds are over 300 to 1, but bingo and keno are exempt. The bill being considered by the Senate today extends this withholding to bingo and keno winnings over $5,000, regardless of the odds of the wager. The change in withholding included in the bill is not included for any serious policy or enforcement reason. In fact, there is good reason not to require withholding on gambling winnings. For example, gambling winnings can be offset by gambling losses--drastically reducing the actual tax due from the winnings. Since withholding is intended to approximate actual tax liability, requiring withholding for a tax liability that does not exist runs counter to sound tax policy.”