You are absolutely right about the reporting of income and deductions
unless you show your occupation as a "professional gambler".
If you do, you had better have perfect records of your transactions as the
IRS tends to audit this group more than any other!!
[Original Message]
From: blaw57 <blaw57@yahoo.com>
To: <vpFREE@yahoogroups.com>
Date: 6/25/2004 3:43:21 AM
Subject: [vpFREE] Re: Getting robbed (by tax code) was "keeping your $$$$
safe "
···
--- In vpFREE@yahoogroups.com, TedChee@a... wrote:
[various depressing truths]
PLEASE, SOMEONE FIND A HOLE IN THIS.
[lots more depressing truths]
Thanks for pointing out the effects gambling income has on
medical/dental deductions, I had not realized that particular pitfall
before. Aren't there a number of items whose loss is subject to that
same test?Sorry, there's no hole in your logic - you're like the guy in the
first Matrix movie, sitting up in his tub, looking around at the rest
of the battery - kind of hard to believe at first, isn't it? But the
tax code is heavily stacked against gambling, not really
intentionally, I don't believe, but just because gamblers don't make
a good lobbying group image so no congressman will go out of his way
to fix the obvious inequities. And the basic problem isn't gambling's
image, but the gawd-awfully complicated tax code we have that changes
every year and that tries to serve all types of purposes besides
raising revenue for the government. We need a flat tax.Here's another one that bites me - I'm sure there are a half dozen
more other people can name. I don't own a house or have kids or buy
tax shelters or borrow money, so I have virtually no itemizable
deductions. I just started VP this year so I haven't filed yet for a
gambling year, but if I recall correctly, gross gambling income gets
added on the front of the form, but gambling losses are deductible on
schedule A. So the net effect is the first couple thousand of losses
are not decuctible for me because first I have to get past what would
have been my standard deduction if I had not itemized.vpFREE Links: http://members.cox.net/vpfree/Links.htm
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