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    TxTeach79's LIVE Venezia Summer 10 Day from NYC 5/27

    in Carnival Cruise Lines

    Posted · Edited by icft

    20 minutes ago, Retired-N-Happy said:

    The Prima is a great ship.  Did an 11 day repo on her from Galveston to Miami and an additional B2B lasting 14 days.  Haven't sailed the Jubilee but have done 4 sailings on the MG and 5 on the Celebration.

    If the Prima repo was the recent one out of Galveston April 5th we were also on that cruise. In the over 40 cruises we've taken it was the our favorite cruise. Jonathan (Dr. Bong) and Guillermoe at the Metropolitan bar were incredible. They made many of my drinks on the tops of their heads.

     

     

    20240406_222011.jpg

    • Like 8
    • Haha 1

    How do you document gambling loses?

    in Cruise Casinos

    Posted

    Someone pointed out to me a point of possible confusion.

     

    Some may have noticed that in the headlines about the tax court case cited above it is said "that they could not net their wins and losses across the year" while the Office of Chief Counsel legal memorandum AM 2008-011 does allow for deducting losses from sessions other than the winning sessions.

     

    The difference is that in the tax court case the taxpayers were arguing that the losses from other sessions in the year could be netted with the winning session to determine INCOME. The tax court rejected that saying"...their gambling losses are allowable only as itemized deductions. But because petitioners have elected the standard deduction, they are not entitled to itemize their deductions." The legal memorandum notes "A casual gambler who elects to itemize deductions may deduct wagering losses, up to wagering gains, on Form 1040, Schedule A."

     

    So the headline is a bit misleading. The tax court and the legal memo are in agreement that IF you itemize you can deduct your losses up to the amount of your winnings for the year.

     

    For reference, the tax court decision:

    https://bradfordtaxinstitute.com/Endnotes/TC_Memo_2009-306.pdf

     

    • Like 1
    • Thanks 2

    How do you document gambling loses?

    in Cruise Casinos

    Posted

    13 hours ago, kwokpot said:

    That's incorrect. The IRS had no definition on what constitutes a gambling session. It isn't spelled out Anywhere.

     

    4 hours ago, Elaine5715 said:

    The ruling is in the above post.

    If you are referring to post #14, that is not a ruling but rather a report in the Journal of Accountancy concerning a tax court decision.

     

    If you are referring to the Office of Chief Counsel legal memorandum AM 2008-011 then you will find it here:

    https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-utl/am2008011.pdf

    and it does not define "session."

     

    Also note that it is advice, not a ruling. At the top it states "This advice may not be used or cited as precedent." It is the kind of thing generated by legal when asked by the field agents for guidance on the handling of an issue. It is not a law or regulation and therefore bears no weight in support of an IRS position, though its existence does allow an estoppel argument against the IRS (it is a sword that can be used against the IRS but not by the IRS).

     

    • Thanks 2

    How do you document gambling loses?

    in Cruise Casinos

    Posted

    1 hour ago, Elaine5715 said:

    It is pretty difficult to document gambling losses to withstand an audit.  A contemporaneous journal is required, not a complied win/loss statement. Your winning W2-G will identify  the exact slot machine that paid so you must also keep a record of the slot machines you lost.  

                                               *                     *                    *

     

    While I agree that for most folks, including me, the effort of documenting everything is not worth the gain, I think you are overstating the difficulty. For example, there is no need to document the exact slot machines on which you lost on each spin. To quote part of the article linked below:

     

    "The IRS in 2008, and later clarified in 2015, created rules for deducting gambling losses called gambling sessions.

    The idea was a gambling win wasn’t really a true win until the session was completed. The Tax Court ruled it is impractical to record each and every wager (pull of the lever, deal of the cards or throw of the dice) and therefore wins and losses can be tabulated for each gambling session versus each hand of cards played, et cetera."

     

    See:

    https://www.wealthyaccountant.com/2018/12/18/deducting-gambling-losses-with-the-new-tax-bill/

     

    But even that stuff isn't worth it for me. I gamble for fun, not to keep records.

    • Thanks 1

    Saint Greg's Carnival Horizon ABC - Live - April 27, 2024

    in Carnival Cruise Lines

    Posted

    4 hours ago, Saint Greg said:


    Yeah I have Jewel, Encore, Prima, and Epic booked. I also have two of their $500 cruise first certificates that I paid $250 for. So that means I’ll be booking at least two more.
     

    Looking at one out of Boston. I’ve been holding off on Canada/New England since Carnival stopped going to Boston. But other lines use it as a home port so that’s on my list.

     

    I want to do an Alaska on one of their larger ships out of Seattle that stops in Sitka. So that’s on my list.

     

    And they seem to be rotating the new ships through Galveston so I’ve got Prima next year. 2026 Viva is in Galveston so I’m looking at that as well. It’ll be nice to check out all of the new ships without having to fly to Florida.

     

     

    We took a cruise on the Prima out of Galveston down to the ABC islands last month. It was far and away the best cruise we have ever taken.

     

    The ship is beautiful and the design is apparently excellent in that we never felt crowded - good people flow. The food was consistently the best we have had on any cruise, with the exception of Cagneys (NCL folks love and brag about Cagneys but we found it mediocre; perhaps a bad night.) The crew was outstanding. Once we were looking for a place and asked a crew member. She said "follow me" and took us down a deck to the place we were looking for, and all the crew we came across seemed to have the same helpful attitude.

     

    Now, that is not the norm for all NCL ships. For example on the Breakaway the people flow is not as good and occasionally you hit a people jam. The food on the Breakaway was very good, but often you had to take a pager to wait for a table to open. And the crew was very helpful, but occasionally you would come across one who was a bit clueless.

     

    At the end of January 2025 we have another two week Prima cruise booked and we'll be looking for Viva when it hits Galveston.

    • Like 7

    How strict is NCL About what time you have to be back aboard?

    in Norwegian Cruise Line

    Posted

    1 hour ago, UKstages said:

    ... and remember, if you haven't connected to a mobile network while in port, your phone's time will - most likely - not be updated. (it won't update over wifi.) finally, remember that - under certain circumstances - the ship's time may be different than the local time.

    Glad you mentioned "most likely." I had to chuckle because on our last cruise my phone, while on airplane mode the entire time, changed a couple of times. On many, many cruises I've never had that happen but on this cruise the time flip-flopped. I couldn't use it as my alarm because I never knew if it would change in the middle of the night.

     

    I suspect the reason is that in addition to checking the phone's date and time options to use my carrier I also had the option to set time based on the phone's location checked. The spam ads Gmail sends all changed to Spanish once we were around the ABC islands so somehow my location was known by the internet.

     

    Saint Greg's Carnival Horizon ABC - Live - April 27, 2024

    in Carnival Cruise Lines

    Posted

    2 hours ago, Jamman54 said:

    Nope. Didn't get either of those on both my 25th and 50th. In fact, my Milestone card on my 50th didn't even have the number 50 on it! Patti said she would put it on with a sharpie! :classic_biggrin:

    Greg is definitely special. On our 25th cruise we didn't even get special cards. Got nothing until half way through the cruse I went by guest services and asked about the leather trinkets you are supposed to get and the steak dinners. They weren't sure what I was talking about..

    • Like 2
    • Haha 2

    Changes to Carnival Loyalty Program

    in Carnival Cruise Lines

    Posted

    6 hours ago, Tom-n-Cheryl said:

     

    (Mentally) going back to my internet beginnings. We'll, I should back up a bit and admit that my first computer was a TRS-80... early model (4K ram, cassette recorder/drive). I never went as far as to build a kit computer though. I subscribed to BYTE magazine (should have kept issue #1, lol). HECK, why didn't I keep all that stuff... and my baseball cards too ! ! !

     

    Tom

    Am I the only guy who ever used an Osborne computer? Everyone seems to have had a TRS-80 but no one lugged an Osborne to work it seems. I lugged that thing all over Houston doing audits; my left arm is larger than my right to this day 😜 (keeping right hand free to open doors).

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