Hey John! How are you? (I'm the one John met in Vegas.) I took your advice and joined this group (finally).
Anyway, as for taxes, the following is from the IRS web site. They don't mention whether the diary must be paper or can be electronic so I'm sure--especially in 2009, electronic would be fine.
1. All gambling winnings are fully taxable.
2. Gambling income includes, but is not limited to, winnings from lotteries, raffles, horse races, poker tournaments and casinos. It includes cash winnings and also the fair market value of prizes such as cars and trips.
3. A payer is required to issue you a Form W-2G if you receive certain gambling winnings or if you have any gambling winnings subject to federal income tax withholding.
4. Even if a W-2G is not issued, all gambling winnings must be reported as taxable income. Therefore, you may be required to pay an estimated tax on the gambling winnings. For more information on paying estimated taxes, refer to IRS Publication 505, Tax Withholding and Estimated Tax.
5. You must report your gambling winnings on Form 1040, line 21.
6. If you itemize your deductions on Form 1040, Schedule A, you can deduct gambling losses you had during the year, but only up to the amount of your winnings. Your losses are not subject to the 2 percent of AGI Limitation.
7. It is important to keep an accurate diary or similar record of your gambling winnings and losses. To deduct your losses, you must be able to provide receipts, tickets, statements or other records that show the amount of both your winnings and losses
This is a great web site! Thanks for turning me onto it John!
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--- In vpFREE@yahoogroups.com, "gamb00ler" <gamb00ler@...> wrote:
John Clark wrote:
> I met an interesting player in Las Vegas this weekend
> and he was using his I phone to record his gambling
> sessions. He sent me this link for a just released
> application for the I phone. I do not have an I
> phone and have not used this but he was excited about using
> it to keep his records.
vegasvpplayer wrote:
> It has been my understanding that a gambling diary has
> to be hand written to be acceptable to the IRS. I see this
> application has a time stamp. Would this meet the IRS
> requirement? What if you printed out the results
> occasionally and dated and signed them before filing?
Previously, the IRS sent me a letter stating I had incorrectly
filed my taxes because my gambling income did not match
my W-2G total. I sent them a printout from my spreadsheet
based gambling log. After a couple of phone conversations
they accepted my tax form as filed. They never mentioned
that they had any problem with my spreadsheet based gambling
log. I do have a paper backup of sorts. It is composed of
many small pieces of paper with rather cryptic notes to augment
my memory.
G'luck all,
Gamb00ler