After successfully targeting deadbeat parents, the state of Connecticut is going after tax evaders' lottery winnings.
Beginning Dec. 31, a new law will take effect requiring the Connecticut Lottery Corporation to deduct delinquent taxes, crosschecked with the Department of Revenue Services, from any claim of $5,000 or more.
"If someone is lucky enough to win a lottery prize and they also owe back taxes, it is reasonable to collect those taxes at that time," co-sponsor Rep. Gerald Fox, D-Stamford, said.
The new law — passed unanimously by the General Assembly earlier this year and signed by Gov. Dannel P. Malloy — initially would have gone into effect in October.
Fox said extra time was needed for lottery and DRS officials to work out the details.
The proposal was based on another state program, begun in 2004, that crosschecks lottery winners with a database of individuals owing child support.
According to the Lottery Corporation, that effort has, over the past seven years, recouped $1.5 million and made going after tax delinquents "a natural extension."
Both laws were pursued by Anthony Martino, a support enforcement officer in Stamford for the Judicial Department.
In testimony submitted in February to the Legislature, Martino explained the rationale for starting with $5,000 winners.
"It is impossible to check all winners of any ticket ... The Lottery Commission will cash smaller winnings at any lottery dealer, and it will cash winning tickets ranging from $600 to $4,999 at one of three stations in the state," Martino wrote. "However, all winning tickets of $5,000 or more must be cashed at the Lottery Headquarters. These are the winners that are checked against a database of obligors owing child support."
Martino, at the time, also suggested legislators consider going a step further and turning their attention to visitors to the state's Indian gaming casinos who win big while simultaneously failing to pay their back taxes.
Fox said that matter has not been discussed.
Under state law, lottery employees are forbidden from making public any tax information received from the DRS.
Looks like the state of Connecticut is getting greedy again.
Instead of trying to find ways to empty the pockets of the lottery winners and casino winners, why not eliminate some of the dead weight they've picked up over the years?
Yes, people should pay their child support and their taxes. No argument here.
But to start putting laws on the books like this is just the starting point to other laws that will eventually make it impossible for you to purchase a bottle of water without the government's permission and a background check.
A very good reason not to live in Connecticut !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Greedy Politicians should be put in jail for violating their fiduciary responsibilities by spending money like they can just print it !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
On a positive note, I am preparing to win about $73,840,000 after 35% taxes tonite!
Green with money is the only way to go green. & Wealth is not greed, it is opportunity !
Anyone that doesn't think that $39,790,000 in taxes is enough is cordially invited to move to the Paradise of North Korea ! Or the Socialist State of Connecticut !
Im not suprised, american tax payers need to pay for this phony afgan war. Then off to another country lol.
I always thought all states with lotteries already had such rules in place and that was the reason some stores would cash winners larger than $600 for a price.
Unless some guys are reading another article, what I read seems to make perfect sense.
Checking the lottery winner's child support payment history before handing over the check is saving time and energy.
If dead beats don't support their offsprings the rest of us law abiding citizens are forced to do it. I hate that.
...always amazes me how fast they could enact laws dealing with"getting" monies whether this or outright taxation,but when the people as a whole want something it takes years
... if at all.
Should've been a no brainer anyhow since deadbeat dads/moms and such just drain the welfare spicket outright dry here.How they've not done this up till now is sheer idiocy.Bad enough you have have to wait a lifetime to get a check cut to you when you're there because of the time it takes to see if you have warrants or other outstanding sh*t.
Also it is common knowledge from the people i've worked with that they just get their parents or grandparents to go to the lottery to collect the winnings anyhow.
Can someone explain to me how it is wrong to collect money that someone was supposed to pay but cheated the state out of it.
Like RJoh, I assumed all states did this. I seem to recall reading an article here on LP a few weeks back about Massachussetts going after a lottery winner who'd won millions. They assumed he was a "10 percenter": someone who cashes tickets for others who are trying to avoid paying child support or back taxes. So apparently MA does this as well. Does anyone know if all states do it? Or which ones do and don't?
not sure about other states but,nothing gets by in jersey.
Today I learned that Connecticut is the worst State for overall taxes. That means that they spend money like water. That is why I say that they can go pound salt !
Well God forbid someone withheld money that the government could have pissed away or made available for politicians to steal.
Heavens to Murgatroid! Exit stage left!
So you can break a law just because you do not agree with it?
Greedy Again? Try Always was...
Let's keep things in perspective here.
You're all bent out of shape about peanuts.
Nobody has stolen more money than the government.
The government started Social Security and took it out of our weekly paychecks before we even saw the money. They promised us it would be kept for our retirement years and never used for anything else.
Then they stole it and pissed it away. It's not there anymore. It's gone. It's now operated as the world's biggest Ponzi Scheme with old investors being paid only by new investors. And just like all Ponzi Schemes, it's going to collapse because there aren't enough new investors to keep the old investors paid.
That was our money in there and it's gone. They stole it.
So excuse me if I don't get all teary-eyed when I hear somebody beat them out of a couple dollars.
They would have just pissed it away anyway.
Screw 'em.
Don't want to get into a political arugment but you do know if every cheated the goverment out of taxes the goverment would shut down. Since taxes are used for small things such as the fire and police department, maintaing the roads, and helping cities rebuild after natrual disasters. If you don't mind could you list a few things you think the goverment is wasting money on.
I'd like to hear, too. Some mighty entitled people here.
I'd assume you're joking but here's just a few of the thousands and thousands of examples of govt. waste you can get by googling "Government Waste".
This is just a list of somebody's favorites that was first on the page.
#1 A total of $3 million has been granted to researchers at the University of California at Irvine so that they can play video games such as World of Warcraft. The goal of this "video game research" is reportedly to study how "emerging forms of communication, including multiplayer computer games and online virtual worlds such as World of Warcraft and Second Life can help organizations collaborate and compete more effectively in the global marketplace."
#2 The U.S. Department of Agriculture gave the University of New Hampshire $700,000 this year to study methane gas emissions from dairy cows.
#3 $615,000 was given to the University of California at Santa Cruz to digitize photos, T-shirts and concert tickets belonging to the Grateful Dead.
#4 A professor at Stanford University received $239,100 to study how Americans use the Internet to find love. So far one of the key findings of this "research" is that the Internet is a safer and more discreet way to find same-sex partners.
#5 The National Science Foundation spent $216,000 to study whether or not politicians "gain or lose support by taking ambiguous positions."
#6 The National Institutes of Health spent approximately $442,340 to study the behavior of male prostitutes in Vietnam.
#7 Approximately $1 million of U.S. taxpayer money was used to create poetry for the Little Rock, New Orleans, Milwaukee and Chicago zoos. The goal of the "poetry" is to help raise awareness on environmental issues.
#8 The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs spent $175 million during 2010 to maintain hundreds of buildings that it does not even use. This includes a pink, octagonal monkey house in the city of Dayton, Ohio.
#9 $1.8 million of U.S. taxpayer dollars went for a "museum of neon signs" in Las Vegas, Nevada.
#10 $35 million was reportedly paid out by Medicare to 118 "phantom" medical clinics that never even existed. Apparently these "phantom" medical clinics were established by a network of criminal gangs as a way to defraud the U.S. government.
#11 The Conservation Commission of Monkton, Vermont got $150,000 from the federal government to construct a "critter crossing". Thanks to U.S. government money, the lives of "thousands" of migrating salamanders are now being saved.
#12 In California, one park received $440,000 in federal funds to perform "green energy upgrades" on a building that has not been used for a decade.
#13 $440,955 was spent this past year on an office for former Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert that he rarely even visits.
#14 One Tennessee library was given $5,000 in federal funds to host a series of video game parties.
#15 The U.S. Census Bureau spent $2.5 million on a television commercial during the Super Bowl that was so poorly produced that virtually nobody understood what is was trying to say.
#16 A professor at Dartmouth University received $137,530 to create a "recession-themed" video game entitled "Layoff".
#17 The National Science Foundation gave the Minnesota Zoo over $600,000 so that they could develop an online video game called "Wolfquest".
#18 A pizzeria in Iowa was given $60,000 to renovate the pizzeria's facade and give it a more "inviting feel".
#19 The U.S. Department of Agriculture gave one enterprising group of farmers $30,000 to develop a tourist-friendly database of farms that host guests for overnight "haycations". This one sounds like something that Dwight Schrute would have dreamed up.
#20 Almost unbelievably, the National Institutes of Health was given $800,000 in "stimulus funds" to study the impact of a "genital-washing program" on men in South Africa.
Again, this is just a minute sampling of the billions and billions and billions the government just pisses away.
Isn't that last one nice? You and I are paying to study the "impact" of men washing their balls in Africa!
And you really think all these taxes are necessary when they piss it away like this?
Gimme a break.
Who's entitled to what, exactly?
Well Ridge, I think you did your civic duty on the Gov waste aspect...But I didn't see the one on the study of cows and how their methane gas affects the ozone..........Thats ok...I was sorta partial to the 5000 on a video game gathering.........Then again, how many billions to we give away each year to foreign countries in general. Lets send them a "sorry,we are 15 trillion in debt and wont be able to support you this year or in the near future" note.....When does the insanity finally stop ? Maybe when people wake up,smell the coffee and realize the eggs are rotten.