The Connecticut Senate voted positive for a bill designed to force lottery winners who have tax debt to pay it out of their lottery earnings. Senator Carlo Leone said that it is not fair to allow “delinquents” to keep all their lottery earnings.

“Allowing lottery winners who don’t pay their taxes to collect prizes without contributing what they owe is unfair to everyone else who plays by the rules,” Senator Carlo Leone stated. “Our state is in the middle of a fiscal crisis, and we are asking everyone to sacrifice in order to resolve it. Neglecting to collect overdue taxes from large-prize lottery winners is a big oversight. This bill will resolve it.”

According to the bill, any person who plays the lotteries and earns more than $5,000 will have his name checked by the Connecticut Lottery Corporation in the list of tax payers who haven’t paid their dues. Powerball lottery

“Several years ago I made a suggestion to pursue balances owed by Child Support Obligors by intercepting lottery winnings. I am not certain of the amount collected over these past several years, but at the outset, my contact at DSS told me that it had collected $600,000 during the first four months of the program,” Anthony Martino, a Support Enforcement Officer with the Stamford Courthouse, stated.

“While it is impossible to check all winners of any ticket, a policy was drafted to seek out those people with winnings of $5,000 or more. The State of Connecticut could apply the same process to those owing delinquent taxes. I feel this would be a winner for the state, which would only be collecting what it is fairly due,” Martino added. Mega lottery

The bill was received with mixed feelings by the taxpayers of Connecticut. Some are in favor of the bill, but they believe delinquents will still find a way around it. The most common method to avoid it would be finding someone to sign the winning lottery tickets for those who owe taxes. Apparently, this already happens quite often, and the main targets are elder citizens who are currently retired or unemployed. Others believe this is just another way for the Government to put its hands on money it does not deserve.

That’s about it for the matter, visit us again soon as we will keep you posted with all the new facts from the world of lotteries. State lottery