I can only speak for one of them. Cherokee in North Carolina does the forms. Seems somebody came along here and mentioned one of the northern casinos (Minn maybe?) did not do the forms and only did handpay at $2k or something.
A lot of good discussion in this thread. Let me ask this - has anyone here actually be audited and either submitted a W/L statement or didn't have a log and had the IRS reject it??
I have had W2's in the $40 - $100k over the past 5 years or so. Never an audit, so can not say. Then again, I still pay lots of taxes.
I received an IRS audit letter in the mail a month ago for the year 2014. That year I think I had about 30k in W2-G's, but I had a losing year, so I claimed all my W2-G's but deducted all of it with losses. The IRS letter said that after a review of my taxes, they had two areas that needed an explanation. Neither had anything to do with gambling. One was clarification on the sale of a home and the other was clarification on interest income. I wrote them a letter and 3 weeks later received a response saying my response was sufficient and I was cleared of any issues related to 2014.
Oops... just remembered... I did get a letter from them - maybe 10 years ago?? Not sure if I had filed paper or electronic, but there was a question about the W-2Gs. I copied them all, sent them in and that was it. I think I put the amount down, but maybe that was when you were supposed to send in a copy? I no longer send in copies since I do total electronic. I also group them from each casino.
Good examples. I've heard many people say casino W/L statements aren't acceptable to the IRS but have yet to hear anyone who has been pressed on the issue about not have a complete gambling diary/journal.
I have never been audited, even in years where I could offset W2gs with losses. The one time I did get a letter from the IRS, it was about not having a record of the payment for the small amount I owed (it was a little over $100). I sent them a copy of the cancelled check and that satisfied them.
Does anyone have a app they like for tracking slot play, as a "ledger" to be kept for gambling losses that offset wins? I've seen a couple, but they don't allow you to write the dumb machine number in. I had a couple small W2Gs on my last trip and still came back slightly behind, and I want to claim these losses to negate my wins. My win/loss statements back that I came back slightly in the red, but from the great info you guys have earlier this year, I learned a W/L isn't seen as viable as a ledger is, but I really don't want to carry around a dumb notebook. Or maybe I'll just take pics of the machine number. I'm not thrilled about the wet blanket aspect of this process, but I also don't want to be audited, so I want to have a "ledger" but would prefer a good app for slots if anyone recommends one!
i would love to be in a situation where i owe taxes for gambling wins *le sigh* i'm doing my taxes now i have a rough estimate of how much i owe will be meeting with the accountant so he can work his magic and make the number even smaller i have yet to owe money for gambling wins since i've always had losses
For most, that is true. But, for some it moves you into some screwed up tax hits. If you normally would not itemize.. you are screwed. If you get medicare, you are screwed. If you are getting SocSec, you are screwed. If you are in in a state that does not allow a deduction for losses, you are screwed.
1 - Not having a good record has ZERO bearing if the chances of being audited or not. Mainly because you do not submit anything with your tax return. 2 - As an app... someone asked about that here once. My suggestion would be to just type it into the NOTES app on our phone. Personally, I do not track each machine or that other minor detail. For those that want to and feel better having some stuff written down, go for it. I know it has been said that a Win/Loss statement is not acceptable if you are audited. But they would prefer something hand written with no back up or proof of validity instead. Yea, I lost $3,287 on machine A487 at Mirage yesterday. Yea, that's right! And another $2,000 on the Big Wheel by the door - where I did not give them my card. Yea, that's it!
Crud nostress, first off I am so sorry about the two losses at Mirage; I hope your trip gets,way better! On taxes, I actually already submitted my taxes. I bought a journal and did a retroactive diary of each day. I personally think it's ridiculous that a totally-fudgable handwritten account has more validity than a win-loss statement (that automatically records AND decent win with a card, and ALL wins over 1200 if you have a players card.) I am always in the red for a year, so I just decided to quit worrying, keep my win/loss statements, keep a journal, and just claim my losses on my taxes. If they audit, have fun reading my awful handwriting. I don't even care about the dumb app anymore. I'll just write some notes every day of future trips, and already did retro notes for 2016. Onto important stuff, tell Mirage to be nice to you...I want you to have a great trip!
Sorry if my post was misleading. It was meant to be sarcastic showing how easy it could be for someone to "log" big losses. Those comments were totally made up to make a point By the way, the wins over $1,200 have nothing to do with the players card. They are reported to the IRS based on your SS number. And, to the sessions discussion - I have had sessions where I won $1,200 and put it all back in the machine. There is no way to avoid reporting the $1.200 due to the automatic reporting. But, at the same time, if someone sat at a machine won maybe $1000 over all, pretty sure 99.9999% of people do not report that win. If they 100% followed the letter of the law,they would also report the $100 win and the $2 win which would make for some crazy tax reporting.
Not to worry I caught your sarcasm on having a big loss not recorded. I was taking it as your point was, it's a flawed systen on reliability, and really does accurate catch wins or losses. On the players card and wins over 12k I know they do the IT'S reporting, I was just saying IF your card is in the machine at the time, it's automatically logged on your win/loss statement as well, whethe you want it to be or not...whereas with handwritten documentation, you can really choose to all leave off, or add on, whatever you want. And like you an many people, many of us cycle through our wins, or a good chunk. I was just giving an update that I am no longer stressing on machine numbers, and I simple am gping off my win/loss and a "journal" as backup IF i am ever audited. I personally just think having a hand-written journal worth more than a winless state mentioned is weird. BOTH can be flawed, but a journal even more so. PS glad the losses were made up, just to make a point!
A lot of good info here. I'll add some, FWIW. Background: I have been audited twice in the past. Once was a relatively painless correspondence audit. The second was far more in-depth office audit. After that one, the IRS made adjustments (in their favor of course), and I was actually assessed a penalty for "materially understating" the amount of tax. It was an honest mistake on my part - no malicious intent. It was mostly sloppiness, but it was my fault and I won't make excuses. Anyway, I took my lumps, paid the penalty, and learned from the experience. Relative to most people, I have quite complex returns. A dozen or more K-1s, passive foreign income, the occasional Schedule C, large deductions for charitable trusts, etc. etc. I've even amended returns where the amendment changed things massively in my favor. Oh and I had a couple of years when I've filed Schedule C with large losses and little to no revenue to offset it. One year literally zero revenue, and a huge loss. I say all this not to boast nor bore you, but to illustrate that I'm far more likely to be audited than probably 95% of filers. All the flags are there - previous audits found issues, previously hit for material understatement, complex returns, etc. etc. Even though I use a professional and everything's above board, I'm still a walking IRS red flag. Every year I have mid to high six figures in W2Gs. Last year it was 400-500k. This is always offset by an exact equal amount on Schedule A as "gambling losses." For reasons you pros will certainly understand, that doesn't necessarily make it a "wash" but for most people in most states it will be. It probably screws things up that rely only on your AGI for their calculations but now we're getting way above my pay grade. Anyway I have never had the IRS question this or ask me to prove my losses. My accountant said having gambling losses questioned is a pretty rare thing because "the IRS doesn't think anybody wins in Vegas." Now I doubt that would hold true if you make 50k a year and the first time you ever have a W2G on a return it's a $200,000 jackpot. But overall I don't think this is an area of particularly aggressive enforcement by the IRS. Besides - as others said in the thread - you can always ask the casinos to produce an accounting of your play (and hope it's not terribly far off). Another reason to always have your player's card in, I suppose. Hope this helps.
This is an old thread, some of which is out of date (standard deduction mostly). Still, some good information. And some that is open to debate. There is a school of thought where you do NOT have to automatically report all W2-g wins. Check it out in this thread.
Old thread, I know. But, wonder if jon-vegas ever figured this out. How did CET show more wins than you did? And what happened with taxman?
They made a mistake. I called CET accounting several times but never got a response. I had to talk to the Paris GM on floor on one of my visits to get it taken care of. I gave them a copy of the W2 they gave me and compared with their records. When they looked at theirs, sure enough, they had 2 of them for the same date for exactly the same amount. Highly unlikely because it was a progressive win and what are the chances of having 2 progressive wins (10% of jackpot) for exactly the same amount on a table game nonetheless. He said they will need to look at the tapes and records and will get back to me. The next day, the GM called and said they had fixed it. I checked my online win/loss and verified the correct amount. It was a pain having to hunt someone who would respond to me. I know this was way below the GM's pay grade and he said so in not the same words - he said that I should never had to resort to having to contacting him and that accounting should have responded to me in the first place. This was before I had a host, maybe if I had one they could have followed up for me. As far as the tax, I did not file until after they straightened it out. So, moral of the story is to check your win/loss w2s, especially to those who get several in a year.
I've read several pages of this thread and I found some of the post very interesting. I've also seen in some other threads discussing tracking of machines the play on etc. Now I rarely play at tables and pretty much stick to playing Video Poker. I few times I've seen people writing numbers in a notebook and I've asked one fellow if he was tracking his play and he said he did. I found this to be way overboard on what needs to be done. I can say based on my playing pretty much on the same machines I get W-2Gs almost every trip. Last year I had 39 W-2Gs that amounted to just short of $90K. I have income from my IRA and Social Security and usually I have some Capital Gains and Losses which usually have on the plus side, plus various amounts of dividends. I'm retired and on Social Security and the biggest menace to my taxes is the W2-Gs. Due to the fact that deductions do not go against the W-2Gs until that get on the AGI. So last year, though I had no real winnings, my AGI had the $90K as part as my AGI and I couldn't take certain deductions in addition to my Social Security deductions for my Part B are at the top deductions from my SS payment. My issue is really why hasn't someone raised the alarm that the losses against wins can't be deducted up front, this way we can deduct against a lower AGI. I guess this is a punishment to people that can afford to go to casinos.
