I'm Darrin Mish. For 32 years I've practiced federal tax litigation \u2014 routine audits, Tax Court cases, and everything in between. If you're facing an IRS issue, here's what you need to know first.<\/p>\n
Many people gamble for recreation, some even do it for a living. \u00a0If you are what the IRS calls a casual gambler, you must remember that whatever you win\u00a0is taxable. \u00a0This includes all forms of gambling, not just casino gambling. \u00a0Lotteries, horse and dog races, raffles all fall under the category of gambling. \u00a0In fact, even if you win in kind, you are obligated to pay taxes based on the market price of the prize\u00a0you won. \u00a0Click here to read or watch more IRS Help resources.<\/a><\/p>\n At certain gambling establishments, the payer may even give you a W-2G to declare your winnings to the IRS or they may deduct your federal income taxes at source. \u00a0In any case, you are required to report your winnings.<\/p>\n Losses, on the other hand, are not tax deductible unless you declare and verify them with accurate records. \u00a0That means you must be able to provide receipts, tickets, statements or other types of documentary evidence to show both your wins and losses. \u00a0List how much your bet was and how much you eventually lost. \u00a0The casino will report your occasional winnings to the IRS, so you had better report your losses. \u00a0You can itemize your losses on line 28, Schedule A in your 1040.<\/p>\n I know, all this record keeping is no fun. \u00a0But if you do not do it, you will end up paying taxes on your winnings but not being able to deduct anything on your losses.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I'm Darrin Mish. For 32 years I've practiced federal tax litigation \u2014 routine audits, Tax Court cases, and everything in between. If you're facing an IRS issue, here's what you need to know first. Many people gamble for recreation, some even do it for a living. \u00a0If you are what the IRS calls a casual […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":[],"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13280","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-irs-help"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/getirshelp.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13280","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/getirshelp.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/getirshelp.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/getirshelp.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/getirshelp.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13280"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/getirshelp.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13280\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22521,"href":"https:\/\/getirshelp.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13280\/revisions\/22521"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/getirshelp.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13280"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/getirshelp.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13280"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/getirshelp.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13280"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}