There has already been a
significant trend towards packing up and exiting the United States for many professional
levels of online poker room casino enthusiasts, the recent talk of passing a 2%
tax on the deposits that are made in online poker
rooms and casinos has increased the level of discontent among players. With this tax, not necessarily the income,
but the deposit and the bankroll in itself is taxed, and what must be
considered to be the most unfair and poorly planned tax in the history of the
nation. Taxing the deposit that is made
in online poker rooms has very little to do with the earnings that are
generated there, as a player can deposit an almost limitless amount and then
turn around and lose or win a completely different amount, sometimes vastly
different amounts. This awkward and
impossible to sustain method of taxing the online poker players bankroll is as
unpopular as it is difficult to understand.
By focusing on the player rather than the establishment, the historical
precedent is set of going after the patron rather than the proprietor. In the past, this has never occurred in all
of the attempts of the United
States government to attack online
poker rooms and casinos and their ability to generate income on the
web.
With all the focus on
reducing the levels of competition and the ability to fund the online poker
players bankroll, it is easy to see why so many professional level players who
have literally thousands and possibly hundreds of thousands to lose with the
reduced amount of capacity might consider leaving the country altogether as the
best alternative to caving in to these extremely harsh regulations. In many nations, online poker rooms and
casinos are more than welcome as a method of generating wealth for proprietors
and government ruling bodies as well.
Through realistic taxation of this type of revenue, participating
governments can easily generate a tremendous amount of revenue through the
taxation of the earnings in these types of poker rooms and casinos. It is important to note that most areas with
extremely friendly tax laws such as Costa Rica,
Antigua and Aruba are most often frequented by
these types of online poker rooms. This
is due to their extremely lenient taxation of poker rooms and casinos as well as an
easy to comply with overall tax code and legislation that is favorable to online poker rooms.