Hope it's clear that I think this discussion went off the rails from the start ...
However, speaking as an accountant/financial analyst, I'm hard pressed to imagine under what circumstances accrual accounting would be appropriate reporting of gambling activity for taxes.
And, FWIW, in any case, my informed guess is that receipt of gift cards qualifies for accounting as a cash equivalent.
Of course, I've little doubt that that there are vast disparities between how people actually reporting their gaming activity ("keep score") and the actual IRS guidance.
---In vpFREE@yahoogroups.com, <nightoftheiguana2000@...> wrote :
Bob wrote: "That may well be the way you keep score. What confidence do you have that others keep the score the same way?"
Perhaps there should be a poll: What method of accounting do you use to report your gambling winnings to the IRS? If you just have a tax preparer do the work, most likely they are using the cash method.
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