Rep. Dina Titus’ attempt to include the Fair Accounting for Income Realized from Betting Earnings Taxation (FAIR Bet) Act in the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) failed on Tuesday when the Republican-controlled Rules Committee refused to attach it.
Nevada Democrat Titus proposed the amendment as a means to roll back a change to the gambling loss deductions policy in the most recent Trump administration budget. Under previous law, gamblers could deduct 100% of losses. The new policy, spearheaded by Republicans in the Senate Finance Committee led by Idaho Senator Mike Crapo, reduced that figure to 90%, meaning that gamblers could in theory owe taxes without generating income from gambling in a given tax year.
The Congressional Budget Office estimated that the change could generate $1.1 billion in revenue over the next eight years. Politicians opposed to the change decried Republicans exploiting an easy target to make up for budget cuts in other areas. High-level gamblers bemoaned a change they said would put them out of business and therefore be detrimental to the entire legal gambling industry.
Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), both Senate Finance Committee members, told HuffPost they were not aware of the changes to the gambling deduction when they voted for the bill despite working on taxation elements of the eventual bill.
“If you’re asking me how it got in there, no, I don’t know,” Grassley told the publication in July.
NDAA defeat the third for Titus measure
Titus was rebuffed after introducing FAIR Bet to the Committee on Ways and Means in July, then announced her intentions to introduce an amendment for the NDAA in late August. The bill is brief, asking only for the striking of the 100% provision and the return to 90%.
The NDAA, while primarily a means for funding the United States’ military and veterans initiatives, also included more than a thousand amendments, some addressing disparate topics such as nuclear energy technology, prohibiting the National Guard from enforcing immigration policy, and critical race theory. The final NDAA was approved by a 9-4 vote.
Titus has not announced her next steps.
