You’re tax professionals. You don’t need me to tell you that the money you are going to win in the virtual office pool on “the big game” is taxable income. You also don’t need me to tell you can’t net your winnings with the cost of the wager. You don’t, right? Most of the rules for reporting gambling income and deducting gambling losses for individuals are well understood with the possible exception of the session rules for slot machine play. I’m not going there—well, not in this article. This article is going to explore the nuances of tax optimization for people who have decided to go all in and turn their leisure time activities into a job.
Using S Corporations to Minimize FICA And Medicare Tax
Peter J Reilly CPA
When United States Tax Court Judge Paris issued the opinion in the case of Ryan Fleischer in 2016 , it caused quite a stir in the tax blogosphere. And from what I have been able to gather off the record it remains of interest. The Fleischer decision makes it very difficult, if not impossible for some financial professionals to use S corporations to mitigate self-employment tax. Rather than attack on reasonable salary, the IRS took an assignment of income approach, which succeeded throwing planners for financial professionals like Fleischer into a bit of an uproar…
