Anyone Officiate Fulltime? (high school sports)

[Adam]

Originally Posted by Camron Rust

Not all areas are paid by a school. Many are paid through their association/assignor and it is quite easy to get to $600 since your whole season is lumped together.

Yep. Also, if you get paid through Arbiter, it aggregates to $600. This would lead to an odd scenario if you happen to have a couple of schools or districts that also added up to $600. If you just add your 1099s, you'll be over-reporting.

[SD Referee]

Originally Posted by Adam

I'm saying this in the interest of other officials who may be reading this.

You're completely wrong and completely exposed to audit. Legally, you're required to report everything you make, whether or not it comes in the form of cash or check, and whether or not you get a 1099. You may or may not agree with how it should be, but that's how it is.

As I said above, you are 100% correct.

On the other hand, after having worked in the tax world, the government has NO idea about your referee earnings unless you get a 1099. Even then, they only know about the money that was reported on a 1099. If you didn't get a 1099 or you were paid cash, the IRS has no clue about the income. They could never prove you received anything other than what was on the 1099. The audit exposure is very low.

Before anybody accuses me of being an advocate of cheating, that's not what I'm doing. I'm simply giving information to officials about the IRS. What they do with the information and their money is up to them.

[so cal lurker]

Originally Posted by SD Referee

As I said above, you are 100% correct.

On the other hand, after having worked in the tax world, the government has NO idea about your referee earnings unless you get a 1099. Even then, they only know about the money that was reported on a 1099. If you didn't get a 1099 or you were paid cash, the IRS has no clue about the income. They could never prove you received anything other than what was on the 1099. The audit exposure is very low.

Before anybody accuses me of being an advocate of cheating, that's not what I'm doing. I'm simply giving information to officials about the IRS. What they do with the information and their money is up to them.

Of course you are advocating cheating. You can tell yourself you aren't till you're blue in the face, but it is exactly what you are doing. This cheating is why the IRS keeps working to make 1099 rules stricter -- which imposes extra costs to catch cheaters. Funny how people who are getting paid from tax dollars (i.e. public schools) are so reluctant to pay their taxes . . .

[SD Referee]

Originally Posted by so cal lurker

Of course you are advocating cheating. You can tell yourself you aren't till you're blue in the face, but it is exactly what you are doing. This cheating is why the IRS keeps working to make 1099 rules stricter -- which imposes extra costs to catch cheaters. Funny how people who are getting paid from tax dollars (i.e. public schools) are so reluctant to pay their taxes . . .

Do you think the IRS is one bit worried about some guys not paying taxes on their reffing money? I have first hand experience in the business and guys like us are not even on their radar. They are worried about big money people and people that have multiple income categories and expense categories that they use to fudge numbers.

You can talk about morals all you want, audit exposure, integrity, and the like. The bottom line is that, yes, the money is income and is supposed to be reported but a bigger number of refs don't report it than do.

Questioning somebody's ability or integrity as an official in correlation to what they do with their taxes is an extreme position to take. Are you reporting every dime of income that you take in during the year? I still haven't heard from those of you that win at fantasy sports. That is supposed to be reported too. Are you guys doing that?

[BlueDevilRef]

I gave up fantasy sports because I never won
Thanks for rubbing it in

[SD Referee]

Originally Posted by BlueDevilRef

I gave up fantasy sports because I never won
Thanks for rubbing it in

That's unfortunate. I've had a nice lucky streak going for quite a few years now. I'm due to lose.