ACK!!

Was the experience at least fun and worth it?? :)

I feel like that’s a story you can talk about until the final days, haha..

Crazy about Al Capone!! More proof yet again that the IRS doesn’t F around…

The reality is if you win anything at a casino, it’s reportable income. It doesn’t matter if it is one $5,000 jackpot or $5,000 in bits and pieces. It’s your responsibility, and if the IRS can prove you won and didn’t report the income they can really ruin your day. You can claim losses, but only up to the amount of winnings. If you spend $10,000 on a slot machine to win $5,000 then you get to deduct $5,000 max. But you have to keep good records! The burden is on the gambler to prove the expenses if audited by the IRS. And don’t forget, those rewards cards at all the casinos. They help keep track of totals, but if you can see the losses, the IRS can probably see the winnings!

Many states don’t tax the lottery winnings if you purchased a ticket in that state. Buy a ticket for Mega Millions in California and win $10,000,000 you pay no state tax. Cross the border to a neighboring state, win the exact same prize and you will owe 13% in taxes to California.

And it isn’t just prize winnings. If you find something of value that you keep, its reportable income. Steal money from someone? Yep its reportable income. Find a stash of illegal drugs and sell them? The value of the drugs is reportable as well as the income from selling them. Remember, Al Capone didn’t go to prison for selling illegal alcohol, or murdering his rivals. He went to prison for income tax evasion on the alcohol sales.

Gifts are not taxable to the person who receives them. The annual exclusion for 2020 is $15,000. Go above that and you are required to file a gift tax return. What’s really crazy is if you go above the life time exclusion, currently $11,180,000, you or your estate has to pay up to 40% in gift taxes. It’s a complicated bit of the tax code that doesn’t affect most of us, but it does exist.

And I hope Confidential does a write up on the sweeper side hustle! It does sound interesting.

Dang! We’re doing it wrong here… (no surprise to anyone)

Fascinating!!

Would you ever be up for writing a post around this in more detail? Along with your successes/fails/#’s over time? j @ Elite Edge Money (dot) com

I’m always so curious about this type of stuff… I remember running a giveaway site once (TakeOurStuff.com) and bumping into all these “Sweeper” people every day… Some people had their systems on lock!

I also just got a note from someone who said it depends on *how* you get the money too, like with casino winnings… He recently hit a $5,000 jackpot, and since it was a “jackpot” he had to file forms before getting the $$, whereas had he just won $100 here and there over time that eventually totals $5,000 he could have just walked out with no one the wiser…

I’m too much of a wuss to risk it in any case, but either way it puts a damper on things for sure :)

Probably :(

Though it would still make for a great experience! And you can always turn down or sell the winnings if you wanted to too, so still worth it at the end of the day :)

Totally have to drop your blog post on it for others to see here:

https://www.dadsanddollars.com/how-i-made-39000-on-wheel-of-fortune/

So fascinating!! You really did do good on it!