On Monday I wrote about Las Vegas casinos receiving letters ordering them not to issue ITINs (Individual Taxpayer Identification Numbers). When I wrote the post, I knew of one major Las Vegas casino that had received this letter; I assumed the letter was sent to all casinos that had been authorized to issue ITINs. I noted that this could have a major impact on the World Series of Poker (WSOP); the WSOP posted on their Twitter account that everything was currently the same as it had been (they were still issuing ITINs).
Since I wrote that post:
1. I have confirmed that a letter was sent to a second Las Vegas casino. I still assume that all casinos that have been authorized to issue ITINs received this letter.
2. What I don’t know is how fast the IRS ordered casinos to cease and desist from issuing ITINs. The IRS would certainly give casinos some time to implement the new policy; I would think it’s somewhere between 30 and 90 days in the future (from the date of the letter). Unfortunately, I do not know what the deadline is. It’s possible that the deadline is, say, July 31st (conveniently after the end of the WSOP) but I think that’s unlikely.
3. I made an inquiry to my IRS Stakeholder Liaison to obtain the information from the IRS. Tax professionals have stakeholder liaisons at most tax agencies to help with systemic issues (and some other items). My liaison is looking into this, but has yet to give me any answers.
4. I also made an inquiry to the National Association of Enrolled Agents (NAEA), my professional society. They have contacts at IRS headquarters that may be able to get an answer faster than I can through the liaison.
5. The WSOP tweeted that this won’t impact them. If this IRS policy goes into effect before the WSOP, it will impact them. As I wrote earlier, there’s no way that Caesars Entertainment will be allowed to issue ITINs and all other casinos won’t be; that fails the smell test. That the Rio can issue an ITIN today is meaningless; the question is will they be able to do so in the future.
Like many policies that the IRS has implemented, this makes little sense. Unfortunately, the IRS is interpreting a law passed by Congress. While a ‘technical corrections’ bill is somewhere in the Congressional stream, it’s not likely to be enacted that quickly given the partisan bickering we’re seeing in Washington. I also believe that member casinos will complain to the American Gaming Association once the impact of this is realized.
The reason I made my initial post (and will continue to post on this issue) is to alert poker media, with the hope that this issue will get resolved favorably: either the IRS relents on their new dictum due to pressure from the casinos, a technical corrections bill passes, or some other action that results in a solution to this issue. We shall see.