I went to town early this am to get breakfast. I stopped at the store to get smokes and I bought two $1.00 lottery tickets scratchers. (California) For those of you who don't know where I live. Anyway I bought one for him and one for me as I am weird like that. He lost :( and I won$25.00 on mine! I am smiling!


$25.00 on mine! I am smiling!
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However in preparing Federal Income Taxes for self or for another that involve winnings from gambling (Bingo winnings, lottery, lotto, Indian Gaming winnings) that exceed the amount of $1199.00 that were not accumulated will be taxed and must be filed with a W-2G form and requires a W-4, and must be filed on a 1040 long form. If you decide to claim a loss in gambling at this point you can only claim up to the amount of your winnings and no more. You must also be able to show proof of the losses if you were to be audited. Which does not always happen. This is where the losing lottery tickets came in as in this case it was a rather large sum of monies. I would have never paid someone that much money for losing tickets as where I live you can collect them by the thousands as people throw them away and there are other ways to account for your losses. Nonetheless choosing to take the loss as opposed to the offset can sometimes prove to be the better way to file. Probably not in this case though. It largely depends on what tax bracket you would fall in, your filing status, and what other types of income may be involved.



