US Gambling withholding tax refund - Expert Income Tax help on cross Border tax and immigration and divorce and RRSP and IRA an
On 06/08/2010 9:16 AM, xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
Hi David, You do this?
I have a 1042-S form with a withholding of $543.27 US. Can you get it back for me?
What is your fee? How long will it take?
Thanks, xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Tax Court Accepts IRS Method for Determining Gambling Wins and Losses
December 29, 2009
The Tax Court held in a memorandum decision released Monday that taxpayers who were casual gamblers recognized wins or losses when they redeemed their tokens and that they could not net their wins and losses across the year (Shollenberger, TC Memo 2009-306).
In this decision, the court accepted the IRS’ methodology for determining wagering gains and losses, which the Office of Chief Counsel put forth in a legal memorandum in 2008 (AM 2008-011).
The taxpayers in the case were a married couple who gambled occasionally at a casino in the small town of Charles Town, W.Va. On March 29, 2005, the husband hit a $2,000 jackpot at a dollar slot machine. The couple continued gambling and lost $400 from the jackpot; they left the casino that day with $1,600 in winnings. They did not report any gambling income on their tax return for 2005, and the IRS issued a deficiency notice for $2,000 in unreported gambling winnings.
IRC § 165(d) states that “losses from wagering transactions shall be allowed only to the extent of the gains from such transactions” but does not provide a technical definition of the terms “gains” and “losses.” As AM 2008-011 explains, the term “transactions” in section 165(d) could mean every single play in a game of chance or every wager made. That interpretation would require a taxpayer to calculate the gain or loss on every transaction separately and treat every play or wager as a taxable event and also to trace and recompute the basis through all transactions to calculate the result of each play or wager.
Because that method would be “unduly burdensome,” the IRS legal memo allows a casual gambler to recognize a wagering gain or loss at the time he or she redeems tokens.
At trial, the IRS conceded that under that method, the taxpayers should have reported $1,100 in gambling winnings rather than the $2,000 in the deficiency notice. According to the court, the lesser amount would be calculated as follows: $2,000 in jackpot winnings minus $500 in wagering money originally brought into the casino by the taxpayers minus the $400 lost by the taxpayers after the jackpot that day.
The taxpayers argued that they should be allowed to offset their gambling winnings with $2,264 of other gambling losses that they claimed to have incurred in 2005. Because section 165(d) uses the term “transactions,” the court held that the taxpayers could not net their gains and losses throughout the year. Instead, the court accepted the IRS’ treatment of transactions as occurring when the gambler cashes in his or her tokens at the end of play and held the taxpayers to have $1,100 of unreported gross income for the year.
According to the court, to allow the taxpayers to net gains and losses throughout the year would defeat the purpose of IRC § 63, under which losses of casual gamblers are allowable only as itemized deductions.
If you 'really' only have a single question requiring a 'couple' of minutes, you can try phoning me for free as part of the following.
For a quick free question
You might try calling me on Fred Snyder's radio program "ITS YOUR MONEY" for an answer.
Fred Snyder's "IT'S YOUR MONEY" radio show. on CISL, 650 AM on the dial in Vancouver from 9 to 11:00 AM every Sunday (604) 280-0650 or (877) 280-0650 - You can listen live from anywhere in the world at www.am650radio.com from anywhere in the world. click on the button in the top left hand corner.
This is a live interactive program dealing mostly with Investment vehicles but we welcome tax questions and even a bit of immigration. We try and limit our calls to three or four minutes however, so make your question succinct and get that answer. If there is a follow up question, please call back.
The following was my April 27, 2008 version of a "too many questions email" when i gave up on ever getting to about 1,000 emails. The problem is that I keep on putting things aside that I want to answer but just do not get to. I have, by the way, answered over 600 unsolicited emails during this time.
david
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This email has NOT been read because of the sheer number received each day. Two unidentified emails are picked to be answered each day. The rest receive this email. Contact information is provided further on. As I am amending / updating this automatic reply, there are over 400 today. I have cleaned out over 45,000 messages from my spam box and over 14,000 that I actually looked at and deleted. Sometimes, you will receive this a loooonnnnggg time later. This is because I put it aside to answer and finally gave up at ever getting at two or three hundred of them.
In general, I pick out two or three or four random questions to answer a day. Unfortunately, I am sorry that I cannot reply to your question at the moment because you do not show as a client. If I am incorrect and you are a client with a new email address, etc., please resend your question or inquiry with YOUR NAME (i.e. John Smith) and the words "PAYING CUSTOMER" in the subject matter. Please indicate when you saw me or consulted me in the last six months and what name the bill would have been under. I am also going to limit my free follow up questions to two from now on.
That does NOT mean I am going to charge automatically for the question. A simple yes or no question is never charged for. However, it does identify your question as being a priority and should stop it from being spammed out or automatically sent this rejection letter.
At the moment, I am limiting my free replies to two to four per day (I get up to 50 questions) from non-clients. I am just too busy to answer many questions and am limiting myself to 2 a day except for my regular paying customers whom I do my damnedest to answer the same day. And, if I have already answered one of yours free in the last six months, it is unlikely that the system will let you through with another free one now. And, if i have not answered a client's question within 48 hours, it is unlikely that it survived the filters and you should resend it or phone (604) 980-0321 to point out that you are a client and that this is one of your two follow-up questions.
If you are not an existing client and decide to retain me to answer your question(s), please be advised that I have a minimum charge of $450 Canadian (plus GST if in Canada - as shown in the suggested price guidelines in RED below. Please call Gillian Bryan or Peter Ingram at (604) 980-0321 to set up a phone consultation time.
They will ask you to email your question again (likely with more detail since you are paying for it) to myself [email protected] and either Peter at [email protected] or Gillian at [email protected] and they will set up a phone consultation time for us to talk.
I am, however, adding your name to our Q & A list and another question may answer yours. AND, I have answered over 8,000 questions at http://www2.jurock.com/askexpert/expert.asp?aid=121&cid=63 or www.centa.com (see the archives) and you should be / might be able to find your answer by going there or more specifically, to http://www.centa.com/search.htm
Every Thursday noon and evening, Fred Snyder of Dundee Wealth Management conducts one of 23 different financial seminars at his office
Time: 7:00 to 9:30 PM
Date: Every Thursday evening
Place 1764 West Seventh
Vancouver (corner of Burrard)
Phone (604) 731-8900 to register and there is usually a Noon hour seminar as well. At the noon hour seminar, Fred even provides Sandwiches and coffee.
No cost - no obligation
Topics always cover mortgage interest as a deduction
other topics - getting the mortgage, estate planning, critical care insurance, income taxation (3 nights), differences between stocks and bonds, and usually the most innovative HELOC mortgage offered in Canada from Manulife Bank as presented by Stuart Rodger of Manulife (604) 351-6133,
david ingram's US / Canada Services
US / Canada / Mexico tax, Immigration and working Visa Specialists
US / Canada Real Estate Specialists
My Home office is at:
North Vancouver, BC, CANADA, V7N 3L7
Cell (604) 657-8451 -
(604) 980-0321 Fax (604) 980-0325
Calls welcomed from 10 AM to 9 PM 7 days a week Vancouver (LA) time - (please do not fax or phone outside of those hours as this is a home office) expert US Canada Canadian American Mexican Income Tax service help.
$1,700 would be for two people with income from two countries
Catch - up returns for the US where we use the Canadian return as a guide for seven years at a time will be from $150 to $600.00 per year depending upon numbers of bank accounts, RRSP's, existence of rental houses, self employment, etc. Note that these returns tend to be informational rather than taxable. In fact, if there are children involved, we usually get refunds of $1,000 per child per year for 3 years. We have done several catch-ups where the client has received as much as $6,000 back for an $1,800 bill and one recently with 6 children is resulting in over $12,000 refund.
Email and Faxed information is convenient for the sender but very time consuming and hard to keep track of when they come in multiple files. As of May 1, 2008, we will charge or be charging a surcharge for information that comes in more than two files. It can take us a valuable hour or more to try and put together the file when someone sends 10 emails or 15 attachments, etc. We had one return with over 50 faxes and emails for instance.
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