Tax Claims for 2005 Tournaments

[Lowerider]

Oops, sounds as though I might have stepped on someone's toes not meaning too. However you have to admit that second opionions never hurt anyone. It would seem to me that if one advisor said no you can not and another said yes you can then, due to him accepting responsibilty for doing my taxes, it would make sense for me to go to the one that said I can. Am I missing something? If so please advise.
Thanks,
Marty

Fishin 4 Fun hit it on the head. The ultimate responsibility for information reported on a tax return lies with the taxpayer not the tax preparer. I'm certainly not saying it can't be done so please don't misconstrue what I'm saying. I'm suggesting that if you are going this route make sure you have all your i's dotted and t's crossed as far as record keeping obligations go. The odds are in your favor as far as being audited goes since only a small fraction of returns get audited. Filing a schedule C greatly increases your odds of being pulled for a random audit. Just make sure you are aware of the risks and decide if that extra $500 refund is worth the potential trouble of defending the deductions.

On a final note, I recommend all tourney fisherman keep some log of expenses so that when you do win some money and you get a 1099 you have documentation to at least off-set your winnings.

[DJD]

Fishin 4 Fun hit it on the head. The ultimate responsibility for information reported on a tax return lies with the taxpayer not the tax preparer. I'm certainly not saying it can't be done so please don't misconstrue what I'm saying. I'm suggesting that if you are going this route make sure you have all your i's dotted and t's crossed as far as record keeping obligations go. The odds are in your favor as far as being audited goes since only a small fraction of returns get audited. Filing a schedule C greatly increases your odds of being pulled for a random audit. Just make sure you are aware of the risks and decide if that extra $500 refund is worth the potential trouble of defending the deductions.

On a final note, I recommend all tourney fisherman keep some log of expenses so that when you do win some money and you get a 1099 you have documentation to at least off-set your winnings.

I'm sold on the idea that it's a risk that most of us shouldn't take. I know i won't and i appreciate the great info.

[Fishin_4_Fun]

AFAIK, unless the tax code has changed recently, as a hobby you can only deduct up to the portion of your winnings that's above 2% of your Adjusted Gross Income.

For example:
If your AGI is $50,000
2% of that is $1,000
You win $10,000 in tourneys
You can only deduct $9,000 in expenses, even if you actually had more than that

[MsgMills]

Yep, that was what I was saying and meaning, at least you can recoup some of your expenses over the 2% limit of your AGI.....