Tax codes and sweepstakes

D

d_asian_guy

New member
OK, saw on another board, some women saying that you can write off your 'expenses' of contesting.

Let me start off by saying I'm not looking for a fight.

And I'm sure someone will go "Well, My CPA told me I can do this."

And your CPA will lose in court. :laughing:

We had a case of a person who came to us about this a few year ago when I was at the law office. Since we were not a lawyer in tax code, we didn't touch it.

But when I started sweeping this year, I remembered that the lady had been audited by the IRS for writing off part of her mortgage, stamp and envelope expenses etc. I figured maybe she was right.

I had Michael's CPA firm look it the comments that I could write off expenses and offset them against wins.

Not one of the five of them said that it would be legal to write it off.

You CAN write it off, but if you are audited, you will lose.

You can not legally write off your house, stamps, your hours online or internet service.

The IRS sees sweeping as a hobby. If you look up tax code on gambling, sweepstakes are considered part of it.

It goes this way, you do not work full time at the job or sweeping nor it's a viable part of your income that can be maintained. For you to take off the write offs, it has to be viable (guaranteed) income.

Sweepstakes in both cases have been found to be not a guaranteed income in tax court and therefore you are not able to write off expenses for that 'income.'

I will try to find the Tax Court cases were sweepers have been audited and went to court. They lost in the ones that Michael's CPAs found.

Here is an article on it from a blog. It's about 3/4 down, Monday, May 03, 2004, called Wanna Bet?

http://mauledagain.blogspot.com/2004_05_01_archive.html

And here are a few cases that gambling and sweeping were tried and lost

http://www.traderstatus.com/professionalgamblerstatus.taxbits.htm

If you write it off, the IRS may not find out. But if they do, you will be audited for at least 7 years, and they have the right to audit you BACK You will pay penalties, interest plus pay back any taxes you really did owe. For the next 10 years, they will audit you every year (in house, unless they find something.)

Tax codes are extremely 'yeah but' in many ways.

There are a lot of odd cases in the courts where people had expenses like the infamous stripper writing off breast augmentations, but in every case, they were making a living at something.

And yes, you can write off a hot tub if you have arthritis. :cheers:

See? It's good to have an OCD gay guy who worked in a law office here! :laughing: :laughing:
 
All the more reason to advocate for a flat tax IMHO!!!

I've lost track of how many gamblers here in LV are POSITIVE you can write off gambling wins, since if you play on a players card, you can get a printout of your overall play/losses for the year, but NONE of them realize you have to file long form & give up the standard deductions to do so!!! :nono:
 
amyshulk said:
All the more reason to advocate for a flat tax IMHO!!!

I've lost track of how many gamblers here in LV are POSITIVE you can write off gambling wins, since if you play on a players card, you can get a printout of your overall play/losses for the year, but NONE of them realize you have to file long form & give up the standard deductions to do so!!! :nono:
Click to expand...

You can write off lottery tickets, tickets from horse races, etc to offset any wins but you also have to tell ALL your win if you do that.

There is a funny Tax court case that I read about. A gambler who use to go to the track (horse track) tried to put in $3,000 of 'losing tickets.' Naturally, it got flagged and he fought it all the way to court.

If you have never been to a horse track, they print out a ticket of the horses you picked. A lot of those tickets had shoe prints on them.. basically the IRS said he picked them off the floor. :scratch:

Yeah, that was smart :laughing: :laughing:

He lost and had to pay it all back.

If you go to Tax Court, you will pay for IRS lawyers fees too in many cases.

It's a hobby and there was a case I found taht someone tried to turn it into a business, even getting a tax ID. The IRS took it to tax court and he lost. I'll have to find the case number, all there was was a brief about it.
 
tharedhead said:
I have enough problems dealing with folks arguing over writing off gluten free food as a medical expense...:scratch:
Click to expand...

Tell them that a body builder who was a professional body builder fought in tax code becuase he tried to write off suppliments, vitamins and body oil.

The body oil was accepted as a write off, the vitamins and supplements were not.

Bet he didn't mention the steroids he probably was on :whistle:

You can write off SOME medical expenses but experiemental and food are not write offs.


I'm getting really geeky into this. :laughing:
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top