Tax question

Quote: AcesAndEights

Quote: GWAE

Quote: MichaelBluejay

For the first part of your question, yes. I didn't call anyone a prick, or come anywhere close to anything that mean or hostile, and never would. Whether what I said qualifies as condescension is debatable, but even if it were, it's an order of magnitude away from calling someone a prick.

For the record, I apologize if anything I said came across as condescension, though I'll admit to being annoyed. People keep asking me questions that I addressed head-on in the article, suggesting they hadn't read it, even though I provided it for the express purpose of answering those kinds of questions. To me, that's kind of rude.

Interestingly, people either seem to hate me or love me, with no middle ground. This was posted on another forum in response to a post I made yesterday:



Yes, TurboTax definitely gets this wrong, and that's not the only thing. I often have to battle it to get the right figures input, in the right place (e.g., self-employed health insurance deduction for S Corporations). TurboTax on the whole is pretty lousy. For gambling income, I ignore the W-2G questions and manually enter an "other income" item that I label "Gambling winnings".

I'm all for complaining about the unfairness of the gambling tax. Someone posted an example of how losses can't effectively be deducted and asked whether he had that right, and whether it seemed fair. Yet my article has *an entire section* titled, in large flaming green letters, "Yes, it's not fair", which details the various unfair aspects, including exactly the one the poster asked about.

Quote: odiousgambit

Was that five $1200 W2s? All five times [fewer is worse] you lost it all back during the same session?

This is taxing my memory (no pun intended) (okay, maybe a little) since it was ten years ago, and I don't have my records handy. I don't remember exactly how many W-2Gs I got or what the amounts were, but I'm sure it was at least five, and I never had a winning session. I think I was wagering $50 or $100 a hand, in a supposedly AP comp situation, and my results on the game itself were way south of expectations.

It could have been talking $38k, I don't really remember. And yeah, it could have been a risk of being contacted, but I honestly wasn't worried. During the first Gulf War I stopped paying taxes in protest because I didn't want my tax money used to kill people. (It was a lot easier to protest back then when I didn't have any money.) I joined a group of other tax resisters (mostly Quaker ladies) who'd been resisting for years, and read books written by former IRS collections officers and the Quaker groups who aggregated the experiences of the resisters, so I felt pretty well versed on how the system worked. Many people seem to quake in fear of the IRS which I think is for the most part unfounded. There's this idea that if you pay your taxes a day late they're gonna be at your door with guns and handcuffs. In reality I've filed and paid taxes as much as 4.5 years late when I got behind, and in most cases when I've been late, even by years, I've barely heard from the IRS. If you do hear from them about an issue that you reported correctly then you just politely show them your evidence and the tax instructions and they'll almost certainly agree with you. If not you can appeal and you'll almost certainly win there. It's not a guarantee, sure, but I'm sure as hell not gonna pay extra tax that I don't really owe just because I fear that the IRS might make an inquiry.

Well, at the risk of getting called a prick again, this has already been done, and is mentioned in the article...twice. The case is Shollenberger v Commissioner.

I certainly did not read every post in this thread and I am not sure how terrible the questions are. I did indeed read your post.

I need to go back and read your article again as my reading comprehension sucks and I didn't realize that there would be this much discussion. If I am recalling correctly you are saying that if I gamble 1 time this year and get a w2g for 2k on my first spin, but before the session is over I lose 5k then I do not have to report any gambling at all on my taxes. However I will get a notice from the IRS that I owe taxes for the missing w2g. But you say we can fight with them and not actually have to pay that tax? If that is the case how likely is that going to trigger and audit? If you finally talk the IRS agent into that argument I would imagine they don't believe the was the case. Taking it a step further. Say you gambled a bunch throughout the year and have 20 w2gs but still never had a winning session. You shouldn't have to pay but I can't imagine the IRS ever believes you didn't have 1 winning session. Maybe I am not understanding any of this but it seems like very few people actually do understand it.

As long as you can back up the facts and circumstances of your gambling activities with a contemporaneous gambling journal, then you are correct in both examples. No gambling winnings need be reported, you will almost certainly be contacted by the IRS, and you will tell them that you follow the session accounting rules and had no winning sessions for the year. Backed up by your journal which shows only losing sessions.

Quote: GWAE

If you go to the casino every single day and $1000 with our favorite craps players hit and run strategy, but on the final day you go crazy and lose 364k. You are going to report a 364k win and a loss of 364k on schedule A. Now you are a 1% er and you get crushed at a higher tax bracket and your 50k a year income gets destroyed.

Quote: ChumpChange

Also, some casinos cages will check your buy-in at the table if you used a Player's Card and deduct that from your cash-out so you don't trigger a CTR..

Quote: GWAE

Quote: AcesAndEights

Quote: GWAE

Quote: MichaelBluejay

For the first part of your question, yes. I didn't call anyone a prick, or come anywhere close to anything that mean or hostile, and never would. Whether what I said qualifies as condescension is debatable, but even if it were, it's an order of magnitude away from calling someone a prick.

For the record, I apologize if anything I said came across as condescension, though I'll admit to being annoyed. People keep asking me questions that I addressed head-on in the article, suggesting they hadn't read it, even though I provided it for the express purpose of answering those kinds of questions. To me, that's kind of rude.

Interestingly, people either seem to hate me or love me, with no middle ground. This was posted on another forum in response to a post I made yesterday:



Yes, TurboTax definitely gets this wrong, and that's not the only thing. I often have to battle it to get the right figures input, in the right place (e.g., self-employed health insurance deduction for S Corporations). TurboTax on the whole is pretty lousy. For gambling income, I ignore the W-2G questions and manually enter an "other income" item that I label "Gambling winnings".

I'm all for complaining about the unfairness of the gambling tax. Someone posted an example of how losses can't effectively be deducted and asked whether he had that right, and whether it seemed fair. Yet my article has *an entire section* titled, in large flaming green letters, "Yes, it's not fair", which details the various unfair aspects, including exactly the one the poster asked about.

Quote: odiousgambit

Was that five $1200 W2s? All five times [fewer is worse] you lost it all back during the same session?

This is taxing my memory (no pun intended) (okay, maybe a little) since it was ten years ago, and I don't have my records handy. I don't remember exactly how many W-2Gs I got or what the amounts were, but I'm sure it was at least five, and I never had a winning session. I think I was wagering $50 or $100 a hand, in a supposedly AP comp situation, and my results on the game itself were way south of expectations.

It could have been talking $38k, I don't really remember. And yeah, it could have been a risk of being contacted, but I honestly wasn't worried. During the first Gulf War I stopped paying taxes in protest because I didn't want my tax money used to kill people. (It was a lot easier to protest back then when I didn't have any money.) I joined a group of other tax resisters (mostly Quaker ladies) who'd been resisting for years, and read books written by former IRS collections officers and the Quaker groups who aggregated the experiences of the resisters, so I felt pretty well versed on how the system worked. Many people seem to quake in fear of the IRS which I think is for the most part unfounded. There's this idea that if you pay your taxes a day late they're gonna be at your door with guns and handcuffs. In reality I've filed and paid taxes as much as 4.5 years late when I got behind, and in most cases when I've been late, even by years, I've barely heard from the IRS. If you do hear from them about an issue that you reported correctly then you just politely show them your evidence and the tax instructions and they'll almost certainly agree with you. If not you can appeal and you'll almost certainly win there. It's not a guarantee, sure, but I'm sure as hell not gonna pay extra tax that I don't really owe just because I fear that the IRS might make an inquiry.

Well, at the risk of getting called a prick again, this has already been done, and is mentioned in the article...twice. The case is Shollenberger v Commissioner.

I certainly did not read every post in this thread and I am not sure how terrible the questions are. I did indeed read your post.

I need to go back and read your article again as my reading comprehension sucks and I didn't realize that there would be this much discussion. If I am recalling correctly you are saying that if I gamble 1 time this year and get a w2g for 2k on my first spin, but before the session is over I lose 5k then I do not have to report any gambling at all on my taxes. However I will get a notice from the IRS that I owe taxes for the missing w2g. But you say we can fight with them and not actually have to pay that tax? If that is the case how likely is that going to trigger and audit? If you finally talk the IRS agent into that argument I would imagine they don't believe the was the case. Taking it a step further. Say you gambled a bunch throughout the year and have 20 w2gs but still never had a winning session. You shouldn't have to pay but I can't imagine the IRS ever believes you didn't have 1 winning session. Maybe I am not understanding any of this but it seems like very few people actually do understand it.

As long as you can back up the facts and circumstances of your gambling activities with a contemporaneous gambling journal, then you are correct in both examples. No gambling winnings need be reported, you will almost certainly be contacted by the IRS, and you will tell them that you follow the session accounting rules and had no winning sessions for the year. Backed up by your journal which shows only losing sessions.

That may be true but I would wager that 99.54% of people who gamble do not count every session and do not keep perfect records. I played poker the other and won $96. It appears nowhere on my records. Even with good records it becomes a matter of convincing an auditor that they are correct and truthful.

It has got to drive agents crazy. In 2001 - 2012 I had nothing to report for gambling. 2013-2015 I had w2g totals with 0 profit. 2016, nothing reported. 2017 w2gs reported. IRS isnt that stupid to think that my gambling was only to the amount of my w2gs and I didnt gamble in 2016.

I guess if you truly keep a correct journal then by all means fight them, but with correct accounting I am sure your agi is going to skyrocket and your taxes will suffer.

If you go to the casino every single day and $1000 with our favorite craps players hit and run strategy, but on the final day you go crazy and lose 364k. You are going to report a 364k win and a loss of 364k on schedule A. Now you are a 1% er and you get crushed at a higher tax bracket and your 50k a year income gets destroyed.

Quote: GWAE

I always wondered if these agencies really don't contact each other. When I worked in the census it was always told that nothing that we do gets reported to any other agencies including ice or ins. Do they really not talk at all?

Quote: WangSanJose

If wife and husband file tax return together,
wife won a lot in VP,
husband lost a lot in Blackjack,
can husband use his lost to deduct wife's winning?

Quote: Wizard

Yes. The accounting is more complicated, but it is as if one person did all the gambling. Someone correct me if I'm wrong.

Quote: Tax Help for Gamblers

In summary, reporting a number that's less than your W-2G total is controversial, even among tax professionals, and untested in the courts. Until there are clear instructions from the IRS, as well as definitive court cases, this must be decided on a case-by-case basis and depends on the willingness of the gambler to fight the IRS.

Quote: AcesAndEights

Quote: GWAE

Quote: AcesAndEights

Quote: GWAE

Quote: MichaelBluejay

For the first part of your question, yes. I didn't call anyone a prick, or come anywhere close to anything that mean or hostile, and never would. Whether what I said qualifies as condescension is debatable, but even if it were, it's an order of magnitude away from calling someone a prick.

For the record, I apologize if anything I said came across as condescension, though I'll admit to being annoyed. People keep asking me questions that I addressed head-on in the article, suggesting they hadn't read it, even though I provided it for the express purpose of answering those kinds of questions. To me, that's kind of rude.

Interestingly, people either seem to hate me or love me, with no middle ground. This was posted on another forum in response to a post I made yesterday:



Yes, TurboTax definitely gets this wrong, and that's not the only thing. I often have to battle it to get the right figures input, in the right place (e.g., self-employed health insurance deduction for S Corporations). TurboTax on the whole is pretty lousy. For gambling income, I ignore the W-2G questions and manually enter an "other income" item that I label "Gambling winnings".

I'm all for complaining about the unfairness of the gambling tax. Someone posted an example of how losses can't effectively be deducted and asked whether he had that right, and whether it seemed fair. Yet my article has *an entire section* titled, in large flaming green letters, "Yes, it's not fair", which details the various unfair aspects, including exactly the one the poster asked about.

Quote: odiousgambit

Was that five $1200 W2s? All five times [fewer is worse] you lost it all back during the same session?

This is taxing my memory (no pun intended) (okay, maybe a little) since it was ten years ago, and I don't have my records handy. I don't remember exactly how many W-2Gs I got or what the amounts were, but I'm sure it was at least five, and I never had a winning session. I think I was wagering $50 or $100 a hand, in a supposedly AP comp situation, and my results on the game itself were way south of expectations.

It could have been talking $38k, I don't really remember. And yeah, it could have been a risk of being contacted, but I honestly wasn't worried. During the first Gulf War I stopped paying taxes in protest because I didn't want my tax money used to kill people. (It was a lot easier to protest back then when I didn't have any money.) I joined a group of other tax resisters (mostly Quaker ladies) who'd been resisting for years, and read books written by former IRS collections officers and the Quaker groups who aggregated the experiences of the resisters, so I felt pretty well versed on how the system worked. Many people seem to quake in fear of the IRS which I think is for the most part unfounded. There's this idea that if you pay your taxes a day late they're gonna be at your door with guns and handcuffs. In reality I've filed and paid taxes as much as 4.5 years late when I got behind, and in most cases when I've been late, even by years, I've barely heard from the IRS. If you do hear from them about an issue that you reported correctly then you just politely show them your evidence and the tax instructions and they'll almost certainly agree with you. If not you can appeal and you'll almost certainly win there. It's not a guarantee, sure, but I'm sure as hell not gonna pay extra tax that I don't really owe just because I fear that the IRS might make an inquiry.

Well, at the risk of getting called a prick again, this has already been done, and is mentioned in the article...twice. The case is Shollenberger v Commissioner.

I certainly did not read every post in this thread and I am not sure how terrible the questions are. I did indeed read your post.

I need to go back and read your article again as my reading comprehension sucks and I didn't realize that there would be this much discussion. If I am recalling correctly you are saying that if I gamble 1 time this year and get a w2g for 2k on my first spin, but before the session is over I lose 5k then I do not have to report any gambling at all on my taxes. However I will get a notice from the IRS that I owe taxes for the missing w2g. But you say we can fight with them and not actually have to pay that tax? If that is the case how likely is that going to trigger and audit? If you finally talk the IRS agent into that argument I would imagine they don't believe the was the case. Taking it a step further. Say you gambled a bunch throughout the year and have 20 w2gs but still never had a winning session. You shouldn't have to pay but I can't imagine the IRS ever believes you didn't have 1 winning session. Maybe I am not understanding any of this but it seems like very few people actually do understand it.

As long as you can back up the facts and circumstances of your gambling activities with a contemporaneous gambling journal, then you are correct in both examples. No gambling winnings need be reported, you will almost certainly be contacted by the IRS, and you will tell them that you follow the session accounting rules and had no winning sessions for the year. Backed up by your journal which shows only losing sessions.

That may be true but I would wager that 99.54% of people who gamble do not count every session and do not keep perfect records. I played poker the other and won $96. It appears nowhere on my records. Even with good records it becomes a matter of convincing an auditor that they are correct and truthful.

It has got to drive agents crazy. In 2001 - 2012 I had nothing to report for gambling. 2013-2015 I had w2g totals with 0 profit. 2016, nothing reported. 2017 w2gs reported. IRS isnt that stupid to think that my gambling was only to the amount of my w2gs and I didnt gamble in 2016.

I guess if you truly keep a correct journal then by all means fight them, but with correct accounting I am sure your agi is going to skyrocket and your taxes will suffer.

If you go to the casino every single day and $1000 with our favorite craps players hit and run strategy, but on the final day you go crazy and lose 364k. You are going to report a 364k win and a loss of 364k on schedule A. Now you are a 1% er and you get crushed at a higher tax bracket and your 50k a year income gets destroyed.

I suggest you begin keeping a gambling journal. It's not that hard.

Quote: AcesAndEights

Quote: GWAE

Quote: MichaelBluejay

For the first part of your question, yes. I didn't call anyone a prick, or come anywhere close to anything that mean or hostile, and never would. Whether what I said qualifies as condescension is debatable, but even if it were, it's an order of magnitude away from calling someone a prick.

For the record, I apologize if anything I said came across as condescension, though I'll admit to being annoyed. People keep asking me questions that I addressed head-on in the article, suggesting they hadn't read it, even though I provided it for the express purpose of answering those kinds of questions. To me, that's kind of rude.

Interestingly, people either seem to hate me or love me, with no middle ground. This was posted on another forum in response to a post I made yesterday:



Yes, TurboTax definitely gets this wrong, and that's not the only thing. I often have to battle it to get the right figures input, in the right place (e.g., self-employed health insurance deduction for S Corporations). TurboTax on the whole is pretty lousy. For gambling income, I ignore the W-2G questions and manually enter an "other income" item that I label "Gambling winnings".

I'm all for complaining about the unfairness of the gambling tax. Someone posted an example of how losses can't effectively be deducted and asked whether he had that right, and whether it seemed fair. Yet my article has *an entire section* titled, in large flaming green letters, "Yes, it's not fair", which details the various unfair aspects, including exactly the one the poster asked about.

Quote: odiousgambit

Was that five $1200 W2s? All five times [fewer is worse] you lost it all back during the same session?

This is taxing my memory (no pun intended) (okay, maybe a little) since it was ten years ago, and I don't have my records handy. I don't remember exactly how many W-2Gs I got or what the amounts were, but I'm sure it was at least five, and I never had a winning session. I think I was wagering $50 or $100 a hand, in a supposedly AP comp situation, and my results on the game itself were way south of expectations.

It could have been talking $38k, I don't really remember. And yeah, it could have been a risk of being contacted, but I honestly wasn't worried. During the first Gulf War I stopped paying taxes in protest because I didn't want my tax money used to kill people. (It was a lot easier to protest back then when I didn't have any money.) I joined a group of other tax resisters (mostly Quaker ladies) who'd been resisting for years, and read books written by former IRS collections officers and the Quaker groups who aggregated the experiences of the resisters, so I felt pretty well versed on how the system worked. Many people seem to quake in fear of the IRS which I think is for the most part unfounded. There's this idea that if you pay your taxes a day late they're gonna be at your door with guns and handcuffs. In reality I've filed and paid taxes as much as 4.5 years late when I got behind, and in most cases when I've been late, even by years, I've barely heard from the IRS. If you do hear from them about an issue that you reported correctly then you just politely show them your evidence and the tax instructions and they'll almost certainly agree with you. If not you can appeal and you'll almost certainly win there. It's not a guarantee, sure, but I'm sure as hell not gonna pay extra tax that I don't really owe just because I fear that the IRS might make an inquiry.

Well, at the risk of getting called a prick again, this has already been done, and is mentioned in the article...twice. The case is Shollenberger v Commissioner.

I certainly did not read every post in this thread and I am not sure how terrible the questions are. I did indeed read your post.

I need to go back and read your article again as my reading comprehension sucks and I didn't realize that there would be this much discussion. If I am recalling correctly you are saying that if I gamble 1 time this year and get a w2g for 2k on my first spin, but before the session is over I lose 5k then I do not have to report any gambling at all on my taxes. However I will get a notice from the IRS that I owe taxes for the missing w2g. But you say we can fight with them and not actually have to pay that tax? If that is the case how likely is that going to trigger and audit? If you finally talk the IRS agent into that argument I would imagine they don't believe the was the case. Taking it a step further. Say you gambled a bunch throughout the year and have 20 w2gs but still never had a winning session. You shouldn't have to pay but I can't imagine the IRS ever believes you didn't have 1 winning session. Maybe I am not understanding any of this but it seems like very few people actually do understand it.

As long as you can back up the facts and circumstances of your gambling activities with a contemporaneous gambling journal, then you are correct in both examples. No gambling winnings need be reported, you will almost certainly be contacted by the IRS, and you will tell them that you follow the session accounting rules and had no winning sessions for the year. Backed up by your journal which shows only losing sessions.

Quote: Wizard

Since the IRS has not taken the trouble to define what a session is, can't I define it for myself as the entire calendar year?

Quote: SOOPOO

Somewhere earlier someone wrote it just can't exceed a day. Right?

Quote:

Session.
For purposes of this section, a session of play begins when a patron places the first wager on a particular type of game at a gaming establishment and ends when the patron places his or her last wager on the same type of game before the end of the same calendar day at the same gaming establishment. For purposes of this section, the time is determined by the time zone of the location where the patron places the wager. A session of play is always determined with reference to a calendar day (24-hour period from 12 a.m. through 11:59 p.m.) and ends no later than the end of that calendar day. Nothing in this section prohibits a payor from terminating a session for any reason before the end of that calendar day.

Quote: Wizard

Since the IRS has not taken the trouble to define what a session is, can't I define it for myself as the entire calendar year?

Quote: ChumpChange

I would consider what I won or lost on one casino visit or one gambling day among multiple casinos to be a gambling session,

Quote: Wizard

Since the IRS has not taken the trouble to define what a session is, can't I define it for myself as the entire calendar year?

Quote: SOOPOO

Quote: AcesAndEights

As long as you can back up the facts and circumstances of your gambling activities with a contemporaneous gambling journal, then you are correct in both examples. No gambling winnings need be reported, you will almost certainly be contacted by the IRS, and you will tell them that you follow the session accounting rules and had no winning sessions for the year. Backed up by your journal which shows only losing sessions.

To me the negative EV of possibly having to in any way "talk' to the IRS is huge. The cost in time and money of going through an audit outweighs almost any possible iffy deduction or saving I could ever get if it alerts the IRS. I think a casual gambler who will definitely be a yearly loser is unfairly screwed with his one or few W2Gs a year.

Quote: AcesAndEights

The process of getting a CP2000 honestly doesn't sound that bad, it's just a "paper" or "mail" audit. So they send you a letter, you send them essentially the same statement back again.
Repeat a few times until they understand.
That doesn't sound very painful and time or money consuming to me.

Quote: Wizard

I am planning to make a whole page about this topic,

Quote: 7craps

Quote: AcesAndEights

The process of getting a CP2000 honestly doesn't sound that bad, it's just a "paper" or "mail" audit. So they send you a letter, you send them essentially the same statement back again.
Repeat a few times until they understand.
That doesn't sound very painful and time or money consuming to me.

not how it goes
https://www.ustaxcourt.gov/ustcinop/opinionviewer.aspx?ID=11365

they want $$$, the IRS does and it is up to you to prove them wrong.
There are NO IRS documents like the w2g that specifically states one can use a 'session accounting' method.
there are tax court docs stating this and other people stating this, but I see not 1 doc directly from the IRS on this.

they look to be after $2k to $5k in the pdf linked to
it started in 2013 and court date was in 2017

Repeat a few times until they understand. LOL
stand in front of the Judge and see if Judge understands.

that paper is FUNNY!
"During 2013 petitioner husband engaged in a variety of recreational
gambling activities: he bet on college and professional sports, played slot
machines, and bought lottery tickets. That year petitioner husband won $5,060 on
slot machines at three different casinos. "

this is a totally untrue statement the IRS placed before the tax court.
the FACTS show they received 3 w2gs for slot winnings.

pathetic
IRS will say anything to get your $$$
truth or lie

Quote: 7craps

Quote: AcesAndEights

The process of getting a CP2000 honestly doesn't sound that bad, it's just a "paper" or "mail" audit. So they send you a letter, you send them essentially the same statement back again.
Repeat a few times until they understand.
That doesn't sound very painful and time or money consuming to me.

not how it goes
https://www.ustaxcourt.gov/ustcinop/opinionviewer.aspx?ID=11365

they want $$$, the IRS does and it is up to you to prove them wrong.
There are NO IRS documents like the w2g that specifically states one can use a 'session accounting' method.
there are tax court docs stating this and other people stating this, but I see not 1 doc directly from the IRS on this.

they look to be after $2k to $5k in the pdf linked to
it started in 2013 and court date was in 2017

Repeat a few times until they understand. LOL
stand in front of the Judge and see if Judge understands.

that paper is FUNNY!
"During 2013 petitioner husband engaged in a variety of recreational
gambling activities: he bet on college and professional sports, played slot
machines, and bought lottery tickets. That year petitioner husband won $5,060 on
slot machines at three different casinos. "

this is a totally untrue statement the IRS placed before the tax court.
the FACTS show they received 3 w2gs for slot winnings.

pathetic
IRS will say anything to get your $$$
truth or lie

Quote: Wizard

I am planning to make a whole page about this topic, but for now

Quote: RS

To SWIM (Someone Who Isn't Me), it seems like lots of the stuff is just kind of unnecessary. Let's say you do get audited, but your reporting has been honest for the most part. You might report something happened on June 6 instead of June 5, because you played after midnight, or you didn't keep track of the table # you played, or maybe you reported something for just being craps when it was really craps + blackjack.

What's gonna happen? I think it's going to be damn near impossible for them to prove your diary doesn't line up exactly with what you did.....and even then, so what? It's not like you're underreporting to hide money nor overreporting to launder money -- the net win or loss is still the same at the end of the year. They don't even see your diary unless you get audited (right?).

Quote: 7craps

that page could be very long.
good for you
many are behind you

just remember, the smallest tax rate in the US for amounts greater than $0 is 10%
that is the tax rate I am in due to my choices and not any choices from others.

Quote: GWAE

and if they don't like your diary, or don't like that you didn't give them table numbers, or any other reason that they can come up with they can ignore all of your loses and make you pay full taxes on the w2g's.

and yes this is only for an audit. I read that they are so far behind and don't have enough people to do audits that it is hard to get audited right now.

Quote: ChumpChange

I'd like to go to the Cosmo and turn $1,000 into $300,000 on the slot machines in one week. Go big or go home.

Quote: 7craps

almost forgot. many States want money too from gambling winnings.

here is one

https://www.revenue.wi.gov/DOR%20Publications/1104gambling.pdf

"For taxpayers who gamble as a hobby, Wisconsin has adopted the federal "session" method of determining gains and
losses for tax reporting purposes. A “gambling session” is a period of continual play with only a short break in play
(restroom break, beverage break, table/machine change, game change, etc.).

The taxpayer determines the net amount of gains or losses for each gambling session. The taxpayer then reports the net
gains from all winning sessions for the year in Wisconsin taxable income if the winning sessions have a situs in Wisconsin.
If the taxpayer has losing sessions, the net losses from those sessions are not deductible for Wisconsin income tax
purposes."

where there is money, there are hands palm-up waiting for some of the cash

Quote: speedycrap

How man'y years can IRS go back please?

Quote: DRich

According to IRS.GOV

How far back can the IRS go to audit my return?
Generally, the IRS can include returns filed within the last three years in an audit. If we identify a substantial error, we may add additional years. We usually don’t go back more than the last six years.

Quote: billryan

If they pursue a criminal investigation concerning unreported income, I don't believe there is any Statute of Limitations. That's not something your average taxpayer needs to worry about, but if you were moving kilos of coke in the 1980s, I don't think you are safe yet.

Quote: Wizard

Thank you for the encouragement. I should have some good stuff on 9-6 double double bonus tomorrow. That will be followed up by some other common games serious video poker players might play. I'll add comments on how much the return is lowered by tax bracket as well.

Is there anyone besides me who is prepared to make the pledge of no more video poker that generates a lot of W2Gs? What little play I do will be on mutli-play games that don't generate so many, even if at a lower return.

Quote: ChumpChange

I'm going to have to make all my buy-ins and cash-outs at amounts that exceed $10,000 so the CTR form can say exactly what I've won or lost. I don't get a copy of that, so I still couldn't follow along.