The State of Virginia is writing new gaming laws drastically hampering our efforts in helping our communities.

Why?

What will the members of the legislature gain by directly taking money out of hands of these nonprofit?

Is it the legislatures goal to deprive Veterans groups, First Responders groups, and groups that financially assist sick and dying children to increase suffering?

Lawmakers intend to make it mandatory for each Fraternal Order to donate 40% of our net gross take-in to charity. This will make it much more difficult for us to pay our employees and other daily expenses. The exorbitant tax increase will drastically reduce the amount of funds available to donate and support other charitable organizations supporting Veteran, First Responder, and Children’s Medical causes.

1. Please remove the exception to salaries and wages to match the definition as defined in Code 18.2-340.16. In order to maintain gaming, our organization needs to be able to pay the employees who maintain and manage our club.

2. The requirement of the proposed 40% use of proceeds would greatly impact the financial stability of our organization and could cause us to become insolvent. Maintaining the current 10% rate would be much less of an impact on operations.

3. In 11VAC20-20-70 Bank account section D - modify this section from the second business day requirement to a weekly requirement. Our club is operated mostly by volunteers and the expectation for the Treasurer to make deposits essentially every other day is not feasible.

4. In 11VAC20-20-40, section B, the addition $200.00 fee specifically for electronic is redundant as we already pay a $200.00 general gaming fee. Please remove this fee from the guidance.

Please stop the inhumanity you’re pursuing!