BahamaMama said:
...now, I am no accountant and as an attorney, I do NOT give out tax advice, so this may be worth what you are paying for it, but consider this....
IF you are audited, you WILL have to show proof of your losses and as has been mentioned, under no circumstances will the IRS allow you to deduct more losses than you have gambling winnings. (i.e. You cannot use gambling losses to offset regularly earned income.) But IF you are audited and have to show proof of losses, be careful with regards to the advice to "pick up losing tickets" because I distinctly remember a case we studied in law school (federal tax class) where a gentleman was doing this very thing and he got his ass handed to him on a silver platter..... Now he was just plain stupid and I only relate this story so that no one here makes the same mistake as this fool....
He had picked up a bunch of losing tickets off of the floor at the track and placed them in a shoe box and presented them as proof of his gambling losses; however, upon closer inspection by the IRS, some of the tickets were on different horses in the same race, which is in itself not too uncommon, but the tickets were placed only seconds apart (they are date and time stamped) and from separate windows on opposite ends of the track. The judge threw out ALL of his "claimed losses" and really stuck him with a monstrous tax bill....
Moral of the story.... If you're going to try to pull over some chit on the IRS and you get audited, you damn well better be smart about it and have all of your ducks in a row.
...just some friendly advice at no charge to my friends here at Jack's Place.
