On Feb 22, 7:30*pm, se...[at]panix.com (Seth) wrote:
- quote -

That would be an interesting experiment, but I think at $2, they are
still overvalued!

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In article <2b2765eb-34a2-4734-90aa-757d5aa8ebaf[at]r15g2000prh.googlegroups.com> ,
Russ in San Diego <russgoog[at]gmail.com> wrote:

- quote -

Put out an offer of $2 for one, and when several people respond
offering to sell, that sets (an upper limit on) the market price.

Seth

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On Feb 19, 7:02*pm, Mark Bole <ma...[at]pacbell.net> wrote:
- quote -

There are lots of people who enter into broadcast station promotions
as a hobby. On rare occasion, I've won significant items by
sweepstakes, such as an iPhone. Most of the time, I get stuff through
"points programs", where you hear broadcast codes, enter them on the
computer, get points, and then trade points for prizes.

There are actually some (relatively) interesting tax issues associated
with winning stuff.

For instance, I win a lot of passes to free preview screenings of
movies. The radio stations routinely attribute a value of $20 or so
to each pass for 2 people, since regular admission price is around
$10. The trouble is that these passes are definitely not worth the
price of a regular admission ticket, since:

1) A regular admission ticket can be used whenever YOU want to see the
movie. At a preview screening, you have to show up 90+ minutes before
a specified screening date and time if you want to have a chance of
getting in, as they usually distribute passes covering far more seats
than exist in the theater (by a factor of 2 or 3).

2) Even if you do show up 90 minutes before the screening, you may
still get turned away after having waited all that time.

I assert that the radio stations are reporting excessive value on
these passes. In fact, one NEVER sees these passes showing up for
sale on, e.g., CraigsList. It's not that they're hard to get. It's
that they have little or no value. Nobody would pay cash for one.

So, what's the proper procedure for adjusting the value from a
station's essentially suggested retail price to the more realistic
Fair Market Value?

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In article <gnl8q0$np5$2[at]reader1.panix.com> , Seth <sethb[at]panix.com> wrote:
- quote -


Yes, there is a stated de minimus rule that excepts a discount less than
0.25% x No of Years from IPO to first call date.
--


ArtKamlet at a o l dot c o m Columbus OH K2PZH

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In article <J8Hml.12669$W06.2846[at]flpi148.ffdc.sbc.com> ,
Alan <sfcnm-mtm[at]yahoo.com> wrote:

- quote -

I was under the impression that if the OID was small enough then it
didn't have to be reported each year, but could be considered a gain
at maturity.

Seth

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Russ in San Diego wrote:

- quote -

Probably not on the radar due to relatively few states with legalized
casino gambling. Might also have something to do with your statement,
"while most people lose lots of money at casinos", no?


- quote -

What are the characteristics of "one of those people who wins lots of
stuff", in case you are my next client? ;-)

Next rant: giftees who think they get a stepped-up basis on gifts (such
as stock)?

-Mark Bole

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On Feb 17, 2:48*pm, Alan <sfcnm-...[at]yahoo.com> wrote:
- quote -

Well, if you're on a rant, how about all the people who win a jackpot
under $1200 at a slot machine? No W-2G is issued, and these folks are
certain that they don't need to pay taxes. And this is on a per-
payout basis, so if you have multiple under-$1200 wins on any given
day, so long as you take the payout before reaching the magical
number, you're not going to get the amount reported.

Trust me, this happens all the time. While most people lose lots of
money at casinos, many people walk away with lots of cash on which
they choose not to pay taxes because the income hasn't been
reported.

By the way, I'm one of those people who wins lots of stuff from radio
and TV stations and the like. I report ALL my income, even when I
don't get a 1099-MISC.

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Jonathan Kamens wrote:
- quote -

small potatoes. How about all those independent contractors
getting paid less than $600 and not reporting it as there is no
1099-MISC? Or all those awards and prizes valued at under $600
that go unreported because there is no 1099-MISC?

Those are the ones that upset me. I can live with the under
reporting of small amounts of OID as it is a pain in the tuchis
for taxpayers (or should that be non-taxpayers).

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Rich Carreiro <rlc-news[at]rlcarr.com> writes:
- quote -

LOL!

There's a scene in The Frisco Kid where the Indian Chief
holds up the Torah scroll he has confiscated from the rabbi
and announces to his tribe, "I have read this Torah..." and
then whispers to the rabbi, "... and I didn't understand a
single word of it!"

This is how I felt after perusing Pub. 1212. Perhaps if I
spent hours or even days poring over it, I might be able to
reach some approximation of a correct calculation of the OID
for these bonds. But I suspect I'd get it wrong even then.

I think it is very, very, very unlikely that people like me
are going to the effort of calculating OID amounts that are so
small that the bank isn't bothering to send a 1099-OID.
Rather, as I noted before, I think it is more likely that the
vast majority of these amounts are not being reported. One
cannot help but wonder how much the government is losing as a
result in taxes that should have been paid but weren't.

- quote -

I don't, and I dutifully called the bank and made them give me
the relevant amounts, and I reported them on my return and
paid taxes on them.

But despite the fact that the amounts are small and the taxes
on them even smaller, it galls me to know for a fact that I'm
doing the right thing and paying taxes on something that the
vast majority of people aren't when they should.

Laws and regulations which set up systems in which honest
people pay more than slackers, and there's no enforcment
mechanism in place to give the slackers their comeuppance, are
offensive.

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jik[at]kamens.brookline.ma.us (Jonathan Kamens) writes:

- quote -

Well, since the IRS documents how to do the calculations (see IRS
Pub 1212), presumably they (and the tax law) expect you to do the
calculations yourself if the financial institution doesn't do it.
(And I note that for the longest time you were *required* to
recalculate OID for zero-coupon bonds even if you got a 1099-OID
for them).

- quote -

The IRS publishes the "magical formula".

- quote -

That's probably true, but it doesn't mean you're not supposed
to report it.

- quote -

Only if you think that obeying the law is being a "sucker".

- quote -

Yes, that's wrong. (And is Part 46723 of why you should never take
tax advice from a broker/bank rep/realtor/etc.).

--
aRich Carreiro rlc-news[at]rlcarr.com

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Somebody please explain to me how it can possibly make sense
that the Bank of New York is not required to send me
1099-OID's for Israel Bonds for which the OID amount is under
$10, but I'm still required to report these OID amounts on my
taxes.

Presumably, the point of not requiring institutions to send
1099's for amounts under $10 is allowing those institutions
to save the expense of printing and sending out the forms.

However, if people who would otherwise have received those
forms still have to report the income, and the only way for
them to find out how much to report is to contact the bank on
the phone or in writing, then surely the expense to the bank
of employing enough staff to respond in a timely fashion to
those thousands and thousands of inquiries far exceeds what it
would have cost them to just send out the 1099-OID's in the
first place.

Unless, of course, the vast majority of people in this
situation aren't actually contacting the bank and therefore
aren't actually reporting the income to the IRS.

(Please note: I'm not talking about 1099-INT's, where I can
figure out how much the bank paid me by looking at my bank
statements and/or the interest payments recorded in GnuCash.
Rather, I am talking about 1099-OID's, for which the values
each year are calculated using some magical formula unknown to
mere mortals like myself.)

Does everybody (the banks, the IRS, etc.) just tacitly
acknowledge and live with the fact that these amounts aren't
actually being reported by most people, and therefore taxes
aren't being paid on them?

Am I a sucker for reporting and paying taxes on these amounts?

(Oh, and while we're at it, why did the Bank of New York
agent to whom I just spoke on the phone tell me that since
the bank didn't report these amounts to the IRS, I'm not
required to report them on my taxes? That's just wrong,
isn't it?)

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