Anyone Officiate Fulltime? (high school sports)

[scrounge]

Originally Posted by BatteryPowered

Everyone needs to be careful with their hoity toity attitudes related to the filing of taxes. Are you 100% certain you are following every rule about mileage and expenses?

If you have a very hectic day at work and forget to log the starting mileage when you leave the office, do you use the assignment software measurement (because in many that is just an estimate based on a zip codes)? You may be padding your mileage.

Mileage that is part of the commute is not deductible (at least it wasn't in the past) so technically the mileage from the site to you home is not deductible (that is the return leg of your commute). Again...padding the mileage here?

If you attend a camp and your spouse goes with you so they can have a get-away and relax, are you separating the cost of the meals so you only deduct the cost of YOUR meal (and recalculating the taxes and allocating the tip)? If not, this is claiming a deduction for something not associated with officiating.

Those would also constitute tax fraud. Not at the level of someone under reporting, but a crime is a crime. People make mistakes when tracking income and expenses...if you missed one game on your income calculation do you file an amended return or do you intentionally leave your income understated? Isn't that filing a false return?

How about other items on the return? Every item EXACTLY in accordance with current IRS code? Are you sure?

Seriously? Honest mistakes aren't the same as intentionally, willfully setting out to actively deceive. A crime is NOT a crime. Jaywalking <> embezzlement <> armed robbery <> rape. This sort of equivalence is illogical. And also, mistakes aren't criminal matters generally, they'd just get you audited or incur a penalty. Willful underreporting can get you in criminal court. Pretty unlikely for these magnitudes of income, but still...

I don't claim to be perfect or get every single $. I'm sure there are some cash games here and there that I forget. But that is quite a world away from intentionally seeking out to evade taxes in a systematic manner. Maybe I'm just a chump, I guess.

And the return commute generally is deductible, as an FYI, for most of us. There was a very good discussion of this in another thread.