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Tax Case Study

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Tax Problem A client wants to know the difference between the tax treatment of a professional gambler and a normal taxpayer with gambling winning and losses. Facts The client is a newbie to gambling world. She does not know much about gambler taxes. Issues She wants to know what are the tax implications for non-professional and professional gamblers. Research For taxpayers that are non-professional gambler, the first thing the client must do is to have/keep all the document or records of their winnings and losses. All gambling winnings are taxable income and must report as income in their federal income tax return. The Internal Revenue Service’s Publication 529 (2016), Miscellaneous Deductions states that “You can generally prove your …show more content…

419 Gambling Income and Losses| IRS). While you might be able to reduce your gambling losses, the winnings and losses will not cancel each other out in the tax return. If the client claim standard deduction, she cannot reduce her tax by her gambling losses. You are eligible to itemize deduction if gambling losses plus all other itemized expenses are greater than the standard deduction (TurboTax, 2017). The amount of losses you deduct cannot be higher than the amount of gambling income you reported on your return. For example, if you have $2000 in gambling winning but $4000 in losses then your deduction is limited to $2000. You could not write off $2000 or carry it to next year or any year. The Internal Revenue Service do not allow you to easily subtract your losses from your winnings and report your net profit or loss (para 10). On the other hand, it is another story when it comes to taxing winnings and losses for professional gamblers. As mentioned above, whether you are a professional gambler or not, you still need to keep records to document your wins and losses from gambling. The professional players report their gambling winnings and losses for federal purposes on Schedule C, Profit or Loss from Business (Nevius, 2016). The different between normal gambler and pro gambler is that the professional gambler is classified as a trade or business of gambling. To estimate your business income, the professional gambler may net all wagering activity

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