Crazy news story I read, thought I'd share it with you all.....
Biggest gamble, though, with the IRS pays off big
By Onell R. Soto
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER
March 16, 2008
Frank Gagliardi is a gambler.
Does it for hours at a stretch. For days. Played right through the 9/11 attacks. A former girlfriend says he was so busy at the slots it took him two or three days to notice she had left him.
He admits there have been stretches when he has gambled “every day I was awake.” He doesn't know how many millions of dollars he has won and lost.
If pressed, Gagliardi will say the root of all this might be his 1991 Lotto win, the one that paid $26.7 million.
Advertisement
But set that aside for a minute. Gagliardi's biggest gamble was with the Internal Revenue Service. He took the feds to Tax Court after they rejected three years of his tax returns, saying he couldn't prove the nearly $2.5 million in gambling losses he claimed.
The IRS wanted more than $1 million in back taxes and penalties.
Gamblers must pay taxes on winnings minus losses. Gagliardi and the IRS disagreed on whether he had properly accounted for his losses, which he was sure were more than his winnings.
The case turned out to be another Gagliardi jackpot. In January, a judge found Gagliardi's report of his massive losses credible and ruled against the IRS, establishing what likely is a national tax-law precedent.
Read the full story here |
|
