Summary
- Hundreds of millions in back tax payments may be owed.
- GreeneTrack was forced to close due to tax rule changes.
- The Department of Revenue has not announced if tax payments will be collected.
The Alabama Department of Revenue must decide soon if it will move ahead with tax collection and rules that are now allowed thanks to a ruling by the state Supreme Court.
If enforced, all non-Native American casinos that offer electronic bingo gaming would close down. The only exclusion would be VictoryLand as the gaming venue has a separate amendment in the constitution.
What Will the Department Decide?
The Department of Revenue could decide to have the venues pay based on the new rules or decide that stacked taxes are unfair. They may ask the venues to only pay gaming taxes. The opinion of the Supreme Court only allows the Revenue Department collect taxes, but they are not forced to do so.
If they do not, the electronic gaming casinos could stay in operation, but the state would lose out on around $70 million in taxes or more. What the department plans to do is unknown and has not been made public yet.
Back taxes are owed by GreeneTrack and the department can go after the payments plus have current bingo casinos make higher payments. If the taxes are not collected, hundreds of millions will go unpaid.
GreeneTrack Goes Out of Business
The July tax bill for GreeneTrack, a dog track and casino in Eutaw, came in over what the company earned in revenues. So, it forced the venue to close its doors. The Alabama Supreme Court ruled in June that the 13-year tax assessment claim that said the company owed $106 million must be paid.
The opinion put in place a new tax structure for electronic bingo casinos in Alabama where stacked state taxes must be paid on top of gaming taxes. Casinos have been historically exempted from such payments. Nat Winn, the CEO of GreeneTrack, stated that the company could not keep operating with a loss.
Winn went on to state that the future of the track and casino will be based on how the Department of Revenue decides to treat gaming venues. The track is the only employee-owned casino in Alabama and is connected to Paul “Bear” Bryant of the University of Alabama.
Bryant’s son, Paul Bryant Jr. is the former CEO of the company who shifted the ownership to employees to help benefit the struggling local economy. Paul Bryant Sr. is the former University of Alabama football coach who is revered in the state.
We should see in the coming weeks what the Department of Revenue decides to do and how the Alabama casino venues will be affected.
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