" Thanks, I am in receipt of your e-organizer. Just want to inform you of a change .... a change of interpretation of the rules, not a "rule change" per se.

IRS won in tax court in which they state (as I have explained to you) that gambling losses may be claimed to the extend of gambling winnings. However, the IRS interpretation is that the win/loss must be calculated on a PER DAY basis.

Example, I had a client that came in this year who on one day in 2009, bet on the ponies and won $3,655 on a $1.00 ticket. He had no other wins/losses for that day so he had a net win of $3,654. However, he continued by stating he had many other losses during the year but NO additional winnings during the year. Sadly, I had to explain to him that although the rules haven't changed, the interpretation of such rules have changed and therefore he could not us any of his losses other than the $1.00 on the day of the win. Needless to say, I hear a lot of expletive deleted's this time of year.

Why I state this is of course to ask you to change the way you may be tracking your wins/losses. "

- my CPA

huge massive tilting sigh?

If what he said the IRS said (rather than his interpretation of it) is true then it would seem to support the one session per day definition of a session. Your CPA is obviously wrong.

Edit: Thought I should point out that even if what he said the court decided is correct the specifics of the case being decided may be so far from poker that the "one day session" still wouldn't apply.

Just based on the plain language of the statute, your CPA's interpretation makes no sense. If gambling losses are deductible (and they are), they have to be deductible no matter when they occur for the taxpayer. Ask him if he has a citation (the case was probably published in a tax court memo) and see for yourself.

This was a case of netting wins and losses, not of taking a gambling loss deduction.

If I understand the OP correctly, the situation was this: taxpayer won $3.6k betting on the ponies, had no other losses that day, but had other (substantiated) losses during the year. According to the CPA's interpretation, those other losses, since they didn't happen on the day of the big win, are unavailable to offset it. That seems objectively wrong to me, but I'll withhold judgment until someone comes up with a cite.

I also did a quick search of TC opinions and couldn't find anything supporting this "change."

It sounds like he chose not to itemize deductions because they did not exceed his standard deduction. That was the situation in the cited case (we discussed that case on this forum).

Yeah, sounds like the CPA is confused about netting.

He can only net losses the day of the win when calculating winnings. So if he won $3000 then lost $3000 on other days, he has to report 3000 in winnings and then take the loss as a deduction. If he won 3000 then lost it all in the same day, he could report $0 in winnings.

So Your saying that A person can net for a DAY? Oh the confusion...

No, not for poker. That's for something like slots.

Cliff Notes about this thread:

OP's CPA informs his clients that based on new IRS case law, gambling losses can only be deducted if they happen the same day as gambling winnings.

This CPA is an idiot, and has obviously misinterpreted the case law. It is probably based on one of the tax court cases wherein:

Slots player hit a jackpot, and then tried to net his win against losses which occurred on other days throughout the year.

The tax court usually rules in these cases as follows:

Win is automatically gambling income; only losses (i.e. money played) in the same day, location and continuous play at slots can be netted against the win (i.e. netting wins and losses in one session); deductions for slots losses on other days can't be deducted either because they are undocumented or because they total to less than the taxpayer's standard deduction.

The rules and guidance for declaring poker winnings and losses, as laid out in the Tax Sticky in this forum, are all still valid.