[Humorist2290]

  But if you want to outlaw this harmful activity [licensed gambling], you have to find a way to replace 6.4% of Maryland’s budget, which is slightly less than the entire amount the state brings in from corporate taxes.

A fraction of the proceeds of losing bets from a fraction of Maryland's citizens contributes almost the same to state services -- EMS, education, road maintenance, etc -- than the total corporate taxes levied on all businesses.

Do I misunderstand, or is this just actually incredible?

[mattmaroon]

No to both. You probably understand it but it’s not that amazing. States don’t tax corporations much (it’s often fairly easy to move your company to the next state over if taxes are lower) the federal government does. They tax things like sales, homes, gambling and other vices, etc.

[kiba]

Good idea to impose piguouvian taxes, not a good idea to impose sale taxes as that's regressive.

Property tax's a mixed bag since it taxes both land and building when ideally you only want to tax land.

States that impose income taxes are choosing not to imposes taxes elsewhere like land, which is the ideal tax. Income taxes have negative consequences since you're taxing economic activity.

[elif]

Yes but states provide the roads, EMS, schools, etc the commenter was talking about, not the autocratic regime.. and the corporations benefit from those services way more than gamblers do.

[127]

It's very weird to me how some state entities think cannibalism will cure famine.

[idiotsecant]

The incredible part is how that's only a tiny fraction of the profits the owners of that gambling operation are extracting from the citizens of maryland. Gambling addiction is a big in the human firmware, and we shouldn't allow private businesses to benefit from it, to the extent stem bwe can reasonably prevent it. Make the state the only source for gambling, make it low-dopamine, and get all the benefit for the state, with a sizable chunk devoted to treating gambling addiction.

[TimByte]

A state is funding essential public services not through productive economic activity, but by extracting money from people losing bets

[harha]

Sounds like a win to me, you can leave more for productive activity to grow and attract more, there less incentive for illegal gambling, and no one is forced to do it.

If there’s a massive burden with addicts, you can still impose that the gambling industry pays more to offset.

[rcpt]

Taxing productive economic activity is bad

[only-one1701]

Incredibly damning, yes

[edot]

Damning which way, though? Are gambling taxes too high, or are corporate taxes too low? And since corporate income is surely higher than gambling income, I’m inclined to think that gambling taxes are too high AND corporate taxes are too low, creating this odd fact.

Edit: and I know it sounds weird to say that gambling taxes are too high, when one could argue that high taxes are meant to disincentivize a thing - but if that thing is highly addictive, and if no other state action is taken to disincentivize that thing, then it’s actually a really sticky income source for the government who now doesn’t want to get rid of their cash cow. Tobacco ads are outlawed, which did more than taxing tobacco. Gambling ads are absurdly common.

[SoftTalker]

There are a lot more people than corporations.

[IlikeKitties]

We should found the government via heroin and christal meth sales.

[mlrtime]

We should ban heroin and crystal meth so nobody does it anymore.

[0xDEAFBEAD]

I think this is a pretty good approach actually. Give people the freedom to gamble, but discourage it through taxes. It's best to tax things you want to discourage. So it's preferable to tax gambling rather than productive economic activity.

Related concept: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pigouvian_tax

[Saline9515]

Gambling is an addiction without physical substance, it is not clear if taxes reduce gambling.

[jonahbenton]

Taxing the dopamine thing does not discourage the doing of the dopamine thing. Just penalizes the addict and worsens their position.

[HDThoreaun]

corporate tax makes no sense for states where you can hire a lawyer to change the home of your corp in a day. States impose income taxes which are harder to dodge and do less to disincentivize investment from corporations. What needs to change is federal capital gains tax, thats the main reason business owners pay such low tax percentages.

[onionisafruit]

This part seems disingenuous. The article is primarily about sports betting, and the author reports that the amount that a much larger category brings in amounts for 6.4% of Maryland’s budget. Without close reading it leaves the reader with the impression that sports betting is responsible for 6.4% of the budget.

[noitpmeder]

I think the author was more trying to say that to ban sports gambling you may need to ban legalized gambling altogether.

[kurtis_reed]

Not losing bets, all bets

[soVeryTired]

In one sense, winning bets. If you lose, you lose: your money is gone either way. If you win, the fact that the probabilities sum to about 1.05 means you win less than you would have in a fair game. The state just takes a cut of that extra 0.05.