A 2216: Requires unclaimed lottery prizes to be paid into the state treasury, to the credit of the state lottery fund.

  
  STATE OF NEW YORK ________________________________________________________________________ 2216 2025-2026 Regular Sessions  IN ASSEMBLY January 15, 2025 ___________ Introduced by M. of A. SANTABARBARA -- read once and referred to the Committee on Ways and Means AN ACT to amend the tax law, in relation to requiring unclaimed lottery prizes to be paid into the state treasury The People of the State of New York, represented in Senate and Assem- bly, do enact as follows: 1 Section 1. Subdivision a of section 1614 of the tax law, as amended by 2 section 3 of subpart D of part DD of chapter 59 of the laws of 2019, is 3 amended to read as follows: 4 a. No prize claim shall be valid if submitted to the commission 5 following the expiration of a one-year time period from the date of the 6 drawing or from the close of the game in which a prize was won, and the 7 person otherwise entitled to such prize shall forfeit any claim or enti- 8 tlement to such prize moneys. Unclaimed prize money, plus interest 9 earned thereon, shall be [retained in the lottery prize account to be 10 used for payment of special lotto or supplemental lotto prizes offered 11 pursuant to the plan or plans specified in this article, or for promo- 12 tional purposes to supplement other games on an occasional basis not to 13 exceed sixteen weeks within any twelve month period pursuant to the plan 14 or plans specified in this article. 15 Furthermore, the commission shall not use funds from such lottery 16 prize account for such payments, as provided herein, in excess of sixty 17 million dollars in any fiscal year. All unclaimed prize money in excess 18 of the sixty million dollars spending limitation shall, at the end of 19 the fiscal year, be] paid into the state treasury to the credit of the 20 state lottery fund created by section ninety-two-c of the state finance 21 law. 22 [In the event that the director proposes to change any plan for the 23 use of unclaimed prize funds or in the event the director intends to use 24 funds in a game other than the game from which such unclaimed prize 25 funds were derived, the director of the budget, the chairperson of the EXPLANATION--Matter in italics (underscored) is new; matter in brackets [ ] is old law to be omitted. LBD05020-01-5 
 A. 2216 2 1 senate finance committee, and the chairperson of the assembly ways and 2 means committee shall be notified in writing separately detailing the 3 proposed changes to any plan prior to the implementation of the chang- 4 es.] 5 § 2. This act shall take effect immediately.