Can this 15.3% be written off or reduced in any way or is it just Federal, State, and Local that can be written off or reduced by expenses.

You only pay self-employment taxes above a threshold - net income over $400. All deductible expenses are removed before you calculate the SE tax.

Labor law usually has tests to determine if you are really a contractor or just an employee in disguise. They are there to keep employers from not fulfilling obligations to employees and the tax man (unemployment, FICA, witholding, workman's comp, etc. etc. etc.) or, in other words, to keep employers from screwing employees.

Signing a form that says you're a contractor doesn't get anyone off the hook.

What you probably be doing is having the officials hire the association as a booking agent.

Plus, 1/2 of that SE tax is a deduction itself -- whether or not you itemize.

And, the $400 limit Rich mentions is *total* SE income -- not per payer.

It's hard for some to believe, but once all proper deductions are removed, it's pretty hard to make a lot of money doing this. I do pay SE taxes yearly, but the number isn't going to make anyone gasp.

Having lost a fair amount of weight this season, I had to buy all new baseball clothes and will have to buy all new basketball and football clothes. All deductible, and it's possible that for the first time EVER, I'll lose money this season.

No doubt about it - tourism would explode. Just about all (if not all) states have already legalized gambling in the form of the lottery, which is nothing more than a tax on people who are bad at math.

Rich:

If you are taking all of the legal deductions that you are alllowed and you are still having a taxable profit on your Schedule C, then you have to be doing something wrong. I can not remember the last time that I had a taxable profit on my Schedule C.

MTD, Sr.

Are you an accountant? That is some great advice:rolleyes:

I am not an accountant, I am a structural engineer; but I have been filing a Schedule C for officiating since 1982, and have made it a point to know what can be deducted and what can not be deducted. The one deduction that officials can not use is the home office deduction because it is impossible to meet the 100% requirement of the rule. But the mileage deduction just about wipes out one's game fees alone, unless one walks to all of his or her games.

MTD, Sr.

I use a CPA. I do deduct for a home office. I work three sports and the office contains only uniforms, supplies, literature, DVDs, and files that pertain only to adjudicating those sports.


Still, with an annual officiating income of around $13,500, and utilizing all legal dedcutions, I pay some taxes on that income.

I think you have to show a profit occasionally (the specifics are in the regs -- something like 2 years out of 5,...) or you risk it getting classified as a hobby.

Bob:

You are correct about the two years out of the previous five years, BUT!!!

In June 1996, I particated in the ABL tryout camp at Emory University in Atlanta. And one of my partners was an IRS agent who was located in Washington, DC, and I asked him about that rule. He told me that before the IRS invokes that rule, it looks at a number of factors: 1) The gross income generated by the business; 2) The type of business; and 3) The type of deductions that are germane to that particular type of business.

The IRS realizes that the officiating of amateur sports is a travel intensive business. It is not unusal for a sports official, i.e., to have gross officiating income of $7,500 in a year and have a mileage deduction of $9,000. Just last year (2008), the mileage deduction was $0.505/mile the first six months of the year and $0.585/mile for the last six months of the year. The IRS agent went on to compare the type of deductions that sports officiating generate compared to gross income with a person whose business was buying and selling coins: If the coin dealer consistently claimes a gross income of $500 or $750 per year and expenses of $10,000 per year, that type of Schedule C is going to raise a HUGE RED FLAG with the IRS.

MTD, Sr.