LINCOLN- Sen.John Lowe's LB685, a bill seeking to require owners and operators of skilled games to pay occupation taxes and check the IDs of anyone seeking to play on their devices, was advanced through its first round of debate on Thursday. Sen. Lowe said the changes contained within LB685 were necessary, as business owners had previously expressed concern over how the old definitions for operator and distributor had previously not matched up with the actual duties of these occupations.

According to Charlie Bosselman, CEO of Bosselman Enterprises, the new occupational taxes will go "to property tax relief. It goes back to the cities, it goes back to the counties." LB685 will also require businesses to pay a five percent tax on skilled game earnings to the state. Bosselman also spoke on LB1310 during a public hearing, a similar bill that seeks to raise that tax to 20%, rather than 5%.

"You're killing the golden goose by putting a bill in place that taxes the business to death," he said, "That basically eliminates the business, so it doesn't really seem to make a whole lot of sense to put a bill like that in place." While LB685 has advanced, a bill that Bosselman described as reasonable, LB1310 still sits in committee.

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