Several bills remain ‘idle’ at the Senate

A member of the House of Representatives has expressed dismay over the Senate’s inaction on his bills, including two revenue-generating measures.

House Education Committee chair Rep. Justo Quitugua said at least five of his bills have been “sitting idle” at the Senate.

These include two “very crucial” revenue-generating bills, House Bills 14-138 and 14-141, which passed the lower chamber in March this year.

“I wonder why they’re holding it. The House has long passed these very important measures. The passage of these bills are most crucial this time as we’re talking about additional revenues,” said Quitugua.

He said H.B. 14-14 requires poker license fees to be paid in full prior to the issuance of any license. Quituga said the bill aims to amend the existing law which allows an initial deposit of 25 percent of the total amount of license fee. The existing law allows payment in installment basis every quarter.

“My bill actually aims to restore the original provision of the law. Poker operators used to be paid in full. Now that it has become [on] installment [basis], the government can’t get its projected revenues because operators would report broken machines, yet these are actually functioning,” said the lawmaker.

Poker taxes are paid based on the number of machines.

“Say they have 10 machines during the first quarter, by the second quarter, they’d report that four are broken so they’d only pay for six. This is a reduction in revenue,” he said.

He said the Department of Finance simply lacks the personnel to countercheck the report about broken machines.

H.B. 14-138, meantime, aims to lower the amount of taxable jackpot tax. Right now, only those jackpot winners of $1,000 and above are taxed. The bill aims to tax all winnings from poker machines, pachinko, slot, and similar gaming devise: 10 percent tax for those who win $100 and above and 30 percent to those winning $1,000 and above. The existing law imposes a 20-percent tax on winnings $1,000 and up.

Quitugua said that players have actually learned to evade tax payment by claiming their winnings upon reaching $1,000.

“If we can tax all bingo, cockfight, and batu winnings, why not poker?” asked the lawmaker.

Meantime, Quitugua said three other bills remain pending at the upper chamber: teacher scholarship program extension, teacher scholarship appropriation, and creation of a technical school.

The House earlier approved H.B. 14-205, which extends the postsecondary teacher education program for another five years.

A related bill was also passed for the appropriation of the teacher scholarship program.

The House had approved H.B.14-210, which sought to authorize the Public School System to establish a technical education program beginning school year 2005-2006.