Pennsylvania casinos to get a tax refund

The state Supreme Court has ordered the government to refund millions of dollars to some Pennsylvania casinos from a special fund.

US.- The state Supreme Court has ordered the authorities to refund millions of dollars to Pennsylvania casinos. It’s money paid by the most successful venues to a special fund created to aid gambling venues underperforming financially.

According to Chief Justice Thomas G. Saylor profitable casinos were paying the most into the fund but weren’t compensated. It referred to those like the Sands in Bethlehem and the Parx in Bensalem.

Both venues had challenged legislation passed in 2017 that set up the Casino Marketing and Capital Development Account. The court took up the case as they argued it was unconstitutional.

Act 42 required Pennsylvania casinos to pay a percentage of their gross terminal revenue from their slot machines. The scheme would remain until all casinos exceeded annual targeted slot machine revenue caps. Those were set at US$200 million for the largest operations and US$50 million for smaller ones.

According to Saylor, the funding formula would have only seven casinos eligible for allotments based on their 2017-18 financial performance. Two would receive mandatory US$4 million distributions, two would get US$2.5 million and another would receive US$500k.

The court had barred the state to distribute the money, so it remains in the fund.

“Any advantage that a high-earning casino which does not qualify for an automatic distribution might receive from the gaming industry being ‘up and running’ throughout Pennsylvania is too speculative to be considered a benefit proportional to the amount of money it must pay into the (Act 42) account,” Saylor wrote.