They are just letting him know who the boss is.

"**** you, pay me"

The tax thing is an issue for me too. I sold my FTP @ 80%, so if they take taxes out of the money I get back it seems like it's going to be a clusterfk for me since they'll obv take out the maximum and then i'll have to file asking for returns? At first glance I would assume that my buyer is entitled to the amount agreed upon and the taxes are my issue to resolve. Am I correct?

Id appreciate any thoughts...

edit: that has to be right, otherwise the buyer could actually lose money. Any thoughts still welcome...

i mean, you didn't think about that when you sold it?? unfortunately I would definitely say you are on the hook to make up the difference to the buyer.

Would they withhold taxes from a payout? How on earth would they know how much to withhold? It's not income for you, it's not even your money and I assume you have a contract to prove it. Just send the buyer his money and don't declare it as income imo. The buyer would owe taxes on the 20c he made. You should owe taxes on your gambling income for 2011 minus the 20% loss on your FTP account.

Also a thought on the tax issue - If there ends up being withholdings on payouts, you can simply just give the money as a gift to the buyer and they will not owe taxes on it. If the amount is above the yearly gift allowance (13k I believe) then spread it out over more than one year. This should be perfectly legal, but I'm not an accountant so obv get professional advice. Not sure what you do for very large balances or if the buyer is not a US citizen.

you don't need to gift it, it's not a gift. If they withhold then you should be entitled to a refund assuming you paid taxes on the money you were able to get out.

Under certain circumstances I think gifting could be logical and less complicated but this is obviously going to be a huge cluster fk.

Unless there's a $5m gift tax exemption this year like there was last year it would only complicate things further and nobody is going to want to get 13k a year for several years in order to get paid on larger sized accounts. It's also completely unnecessary as it's not a gift at all and it's not gonna solve any potential problems due to withholdings.

If you get paid just ship the person their money and if the IRS asks you any questions later just have a contract to back it up. If the buyer doesn't declare any profits they made on the deal and pay taxes on it that's their problem. The larger issue here would be withholdings, and not having to overpay for 2011 assuming you sold your account at a loss.

where is everyone getting that they are going to withhold taxes from FTP refunds? Just speculation or was there some news on this?

speculation afaik

total speculation

cart......horse

i'm just hoping ftp gets reconstituted first before i worry about how the pound of flesh gets extracted

Anyone been to Tokyo? Could u share some restaurant/activities/etc recommendations? Could be outside Tokyo to like Kyoto or wherever. Last second trip booked yesterday and leave tomorrow for 8 days to celebrate a friend's engagement. Thanks for any/all help.

Nope and yeh i agree.



I'm probably more confused than I should be, I would just hate to somehow pay more than I owe and have to request a refund as that probably doesn't go as smoothly for professional gamblers. I'm going to just ask Russ Fox as always.

Yeh what they said, just speculation.

A couple of you guys mentioned earlier on this page that you were looking into how to handle the FTP situation on your taxes this year. I'm sure there are plenty of people out there (like me) with not too much money to spare on professional advice in this situation so if you could please update with anything helpful I'm sure there's a lot of us who would appreciate it.

**not a cpa**

from what i can gather it seems you should be able to say that you had $0 income on ftp from 01/01 to 04/15 (assuming you are US) because you did not have constructive receipt. so basically, if you made say 20k on ftp in first 4 months but had 40k on there, unfortunately it seems right now that you can't take a loss on the other 20k (40k balance -20k created in 2011) until there is either a definite loss or the site comes back online. however if you had 40k on there and made 40k through 4/15 it seems you can just say you had zero income and if you get constructive receipt of your money at some point in the future you can pay taxes on it then.

Its been a couple years since I went, but let me give you what I remember.

If you are into sushi at all, go here. It was absolutely amazing. Its a very small restaurant owned by apparently one of the best sushi chefs in Tokyo. Its kind of expensive, but then again so is everything in Tokyo. From what we could gather, each season this guy and some other badass would bid on the largest type of fish, and then whatever that price would be would set it for the whole market in Tokyo. We did the 15 course meal. I've never been so full.

http://www.kyubey.jp/info_e.html

I'm not sure of the time frame you are there, but the Tokyo Dome for a baseball game was pretty surreal. Bring cash if you go there as there are no ATMs nor do they accept credit cards.

Ropongi (sp?) is the district you want to go to for any red light district ideas. Definitely a sketchy area though and I wouldn't be walking around there alone as a foreigner. Also don't bring out a camera there at night unless you are prepared to back it up with some sort of intimidation on a Nigerian.

There was also a temple right in the city followed by a blossom festival. It might be too early for that to be happening, but they celebrate it how we celebrate Memorial day or 4th of July where everyone goes to the park and drinks and hangs out with friends and family all day.

Finally, I think it was the Hilton or a restaurant right next to it where we got a really really good kobe steak. I know a lot of times I order some outlandish steak I'm not sure its worth it, but this was like $300 for their 22oz cut and I would have paid even more.

I can't really remember any more. Its kind of weird there. Everyone is over polite to you, but then there are areas for only Japanese, so they kind of segregate you from their **** they don't want you to know about or see I guess.

Hope you have fun and let me know if you do anything awesome. My brother is going back there in 2 weeks.

lol what?!

Roppongi is one of their high-end areas!

Might have name wrong, was while ago.

Games seem particularly bad last few weeks?

Nah you're right, it is a bit like that at night time. Lot's of foreigners and people hassling you to go into dodgy looking strip clubs that you hear bad stories about. Also some nice bars/clubs there though, had some great nights out.



Just the one pic, to make sure this isn't one of those full on ******ed food posts.. got this at Steak House Satou.

Wanted to go to the restaurant with a monkey waiter (lol Japan) but didn't have time. Think it's 1hr30 on a train or sth from Tokyo.

Oh, and go to Shibuya, because it's just ridic awesome.

what's wrong with food posts?