Hi All:
I noticed this admonition in a recent tax treatise from MissCraps: "Recently
a friend mentioned he was having a problem with an audit where the IRS said,
"where is your gambling diary?" and things weren't going well."
And: "So having both the diary and the win/loss statements may be crucial,
if an audit ever comes down to that point."
That very informative email (copied below) made me think of a new tool I use
called Gamble Track ( <http://www.gambletrackapp.com>
www.gambletrackapp.com). I had reported to the group earlier that the first
version I bought was very useful for keeping records although pretty clunky.
The newest release (Version 2.0) has corrected just about all of the earlier
deficiencies and works very smooth now. I downloaded the latest version
just before boarding my flight to Las Vegas recently and thought the group
might appreciate a critique.
Notwithstanding the apparent need for keeping track of your gambling
sessions for IRS purposes, I have always felt compelled to keep accurate
records just to satisfy my own curiosity. Everyone probably has in the back
of their minds the possibility of the casino cheating us by, say, shorting
us on quad aces or the like. So I have kept track of all my 4OAK's for
several years now, thinking once I get a good data base, any such anomalies
will become obvious. I am also superstitious and so keep track of which
machines in which casinos seem to be treating me better than others. I
know, I know. There can't be any difference from a scientific point of view.
But it's like I said, I'm superstitious so I like to go back to the specific
machines that have treated me best in the past. What can it hurt?
Most importantly, like many others in the group, I like to know where I
stand in the win-loss department. I've tried to do that in the past with a
notepad but it's pretty inconvenient, keeping my "gambling money" in one
pocket and the rest in another. And meals, cab fares, show tickets, and
tips make it all the more difficult. Gamble Track allows for paying tips
and other miscellaneous expenses out of the same "wad" and compensates for
it when it displays your net win/loss. You can keep all your money together
and let it do the math. I also like knowing exactly where I am for the
entire trip so if I meet a friend for lunch who asks me how I'm doing, I can
be precise instead of saying, "Well yesterday I was up $2,000 but I've put
quite a bit back in this morning."
Anyway, I have been keeping manual records for years including the casino,
date, time, cash in, cash out and any notable hands such as quad aces or
RF's. The original Gamble Track made all that easier . . . but not much. At
least you didn't have to enter the date and time for each entry. If you
started out on a machine with say, $100, you would have to physically enter
$100 into the space provided (4 keystrokes) and do it again if you fed
another bill in, but now it offers that as a choice so you just point and
shoot. In fact, all entries are now based on point-and-click. Once you
enter a city, casino name, game type, machine #, even denomination, they are
all presented to you for selection instead of having to re-enter the data.
And, of course, they are all kept as defaults until you change them. Hence,
in the unlikely event you feel the need to enter a 2nd $100 bill into the
same machine (LOL), in the same casino, all you do is click "Cash In,"
"$100," and hit "Track." Similarly, if you get up and move to a different
machine, you just select the new machine from a list of previously played
machines, or enter a new one just this once, to be added to the drop down
list. What about entering the date and time for IRS purposes?
Fogedaboutit; date and time stamps are done internally and automatically
which I just love.
All this data is (indirectly) entered into a CSV spreadsheet for easy
manipulation. So if you ever get audited-or you are just curious-you have a
very precise record of everything you did. Using Excel's SubTotal function,
you can easily run totals of winnings and losses on a daily basis, monthly,
trip, casino, whatever. So you could easily define a "session" for IRS
purposes however you and/or your accountant would like. (Maybe a "session"
could be all the time you spent at a particular machine during that trip,
the one on which you received your taxable? It wouldn't be the first time
someone got creative with the IRS.) It also provides for a "trip name" so
that you can see how you did on each trip. The program is designed so that
you enter all the data once and change it only if the data changes, say, if
you move to another casino.
Bad points are that it is not available for anything but the iPhone and you
cannot directly view all the detail on the iPhone itself; you have to email
it to yourself and then load it into Excel for manipulation of the data.
(Actually, you can technically "view" it on the iPhone by viewing the
attachment you just sent to yourself but viewing a big spreadsheet on a 3"
screen is a bit short of ideal.) Of course, once you have all that data in
Excel on your laptop or desktop, the sky's the limit for producing
statistics.
In summary, in testing out Gamble Track's Version 2.0 during my last 4 day
trip to Vegas, I am very impressed. There is no comparison between this and
the original, or any other smart phone application that I'm aware of.
Happy AP'ing!
···
From: <mailto:vpF…@…com> vpFREE@yahoogroups.com
[mailto:vpF…@…com] On Behalf Of <mailto:misscr…@…com>
misscraps@aol.com
Sent: Monday, March 15, 2010 11:36 PM
To: <mailto:vpF…@…com> vpFREE@yahoogroups.com;
<mailto:harrahscasi…@…com> harrahscasinos@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [vpFREE] getting back Louisina taxes (and Fed taxes too!)
If you gamble in New Orleans and had LA state tax taken out but are not a
resident, don't forget to download the non-resident tax form from Louisiana
website and file a return. Their return is a bit complicated, but you should
be able to get quite a bit of the taxes they took back. I was quite pleased
to do my calculations and get back about $8000 of $8600 in taxes taken!!
Forced savings!! (Though as usual I'm a loser overall, I had quite a few
W2Gs in LA this year).
Be sure to figure out your Federal return first, since LA's return requires
this information to fill it out.
-----------------------
If you deduct amounts taken for LA tax from your return in one year, and get
some of that returned in the next calendar year, you must report what you
get back as income the next year.
If you don't deduct the LA tax in year 1, you don't need to report it as
income in year 2.
For most people deducting could be a good idea. If your Adjusted Gross
income reaches the point where you lose some of your deductions, you may not
want to do the deduction/addition process.
Federal --
Since it is tax time again, it is once again time to remind everyone
(though few take this advice), keep a contemporary gaming diary of your
winnings and losings, in case you are ever audited. You can find out more
about this on the IRS website, but basically you should record information
such as name of casino, each machine number, time into the machine, time out
of machine, money put in, money put out, any W2s received.
Many people rely on the win/loss statements as proof of gaming losses, but
in actuality, the IRS sometimes has disputed this (I have found these
win/loss statements are sometimes inaccurate myself). Recently a friend
mentioned he was having a problem with an audit where the IRS said, "where
is your gambling diary?" and things weren't going well.
So having both the diary and the win/loss statements may be crucial, if an
audit ever comes down to that point.
---------------------------
Federal --
If you have large gambling wins, you may find it convenient to do an
Estimated Tax form each year and send in extra tax money as estimated taxes.
You can also request a casino to take a portion of your wins out as taxes
and send that directly to the IRS. If you want to do this - request this
BEFORE they hand you any money. Secondly, keep a record of what you've done,
so you can isolate that particular W2G that shows that tax was withheld,
since you will need to send a copy of that W2G along with your tax form.
------------------------
The biggest pain for me each tax time is how unfair the system is. I keep
losing money every year, but I get a huge number of W2Gs since I'm playing
$1 and up machines and often multiline machines. This pushes up my Adjusted
Gross Income, since I can't deduct the losses until Schedule B. As a result,
the amount of deductions is reduced a bit, and exemptions are reduced, and
on top of that, my husband's Medicare cost is increased.
Since I never seem to have any profits, I can't file under Schedule C
either (you have to have a profit in 3 of 5 years to be a "business" as well
as qualify under other conditions which our gambling might or might not
meet).
Someone (Senator Reid, where are you??) (Casinos where are you??) really
needs to change the tax code, now that inflation has pushed so many people
into getting W2Gs. The paperwork burden is huge on casinos, and now on us
citizens. The tax code re gambling is confusing (and a lot unwritten). And
it is truly extremely unfair not to allow citizens to deduct losses from
wins first. But instead even though you can be a net loser for gambling, you
can end up paying higher Federal income taxes and Medicare taxes which is
truly unfair.
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sigh....
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