You’re a successful business, with revenues over $1 million annually. Besides income taxes, your only regulatory fee is a $387 business license fee. The city you’re in proposes a 15% gross receipts tax (subject to voter approval on November 8th). What would you do?
That’s the situation facing the Player’s Club in Ventura. It’s a four-table poker club, legal under California law. (In California, gambling that doesn’t conflict with state law—poker and similar card games—are legal in an establishment that gets a license from the state and the local jurisdiction it’s in.) Almost every city that has legal gambling (in California) has a gross receipts tax. The City of Ventura doesn’t.
As Bill Kracht, Manager of the Players Club, told the Ventura County Star, “We are supporting it. It’s not that we want to pay more in taxes, but we recognize it’s part of the business. Other cities have been doing it for years.”