Nebraska State Auditor Mike Foley weighs in on $20m casino tax revenue oversight
A recent audit revealed that casino revenue reports were not verified by the commission.
Key Points
- The report showed an oversight on how much revenue Nebraska’s four casinos collected during the fiscal year
- Foley questioned whether the state commission is able to successfully carry out the oversight task
Nebraska State Auditor Mike Foley has commented on the state’s oversight of casino tax revenue during a recent audit, according to a local news report from the Omaha World-Herald.
Foley called the casino revenue oversight “lackluster at bet and oftentimes completely nonexistent” and questioned if the state commission could carry out the oversight task successfully.
The Nebraska Racing and Gaming Commission is responsible for regulating the state’s casino and collecting 20% of their gross gaming revenue in taxes
The recent audit from the last fiscal year showed that the Gaming Commission collected $20m in taxes from Nebraska’s four casinos.
According to the audit report, there were no reports confirming that the commission had verified that the casinos’ combined gross gaming revenue totals were correct.
Per its guidelines, the commission is required to submit weekly, quarterly and annual reports.
However, the audit said that there could be “reasonable explanations” for the variances shown on the report.
The audit went on to state, “Nevertheless, prior to the (Auditor of Public Accounts’) inquiries, the Commission made no attempt whatsoever to perform its own reconciliation of the gaming operator taxes received.
“Without such a basic level of understanding, the Commission was woefully unprepared to ensure, with any level of confidence, that the authorized gaming operators were paying the appropriate amount of gaming taxes.”
Foley noted that addressing the oversight is “crucial” and recommended that the commission transfer the responsibility of reviewing reports to the auditor’s office, the local report said.
The commission responded to the oversight be stating, “As a regulatory agency, we must hold ourselves to a higher standard. Unfortunately, this was not always the case.”
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