Make your MAME DDR cab tax deductable if you're overweight

[GamingGreg]

After seeing this article about DDR here, and knowing about some new U.S. tax laws that make some weight loss costs tax deductable; it got me thinking that you could possibly deduct your MAME cabinet from your taxes. Okay first of all, I am not an accountant, and this might be a bit of a stretch, but it might be within the realm of "what's allowed".

Okay here's the logic.  New tax guidlines allow you to deduct gym memberships, cost of exercise equipment, diet supplements, etc, if you have a signed doctors statement that you need to lose weight.  Since a lot of us Americans are, then a lot of us would fit into this category.  So if you build a MAME cabinet and a attached DDR pad, you might be able to classify that as an exercise machine, which would then be tax deductable (if you qualify above).

Maybe that will help some of you with your taxes next year.  

[blue]

i think you have too much time on your hands...

[GamingGreg]

i think you have too much time on your hands...

I wish that was the case.  Being the father of five kids leaves little time for anything else.  I was just putting two and two together.  

[abrannan]

Okay here's the logic.  New tax guidlines allow you to deduct gym memberships, cost of exercise equipment, diet supplements, etc, if you have a signed doctors statement that you need to lose weight.  Since a lot of us Americans are, then a lot of us would fit into this category.  So if you build a MAME cabinet and a attached DDR pad, you might be able to classify that as an exercise machine, which would then be tax deductable (if you qualify above).

Maybe that will help some of you with your taxes next year.  

That's BRILLIANT!

[hulkster]

i think you have too much time on your hands...

rephrase that dude......"you have way too many kids on your hands"

[Aceldamor]

I wonder how legit you can make this.......WHAT AN AWSOME IDEA!!!

[Kremmit]

Have you ever heard the term "Audit Flag"?

[Richy]

Well if you actually lost weight with it, they couldn't complain.

[AlanS17]

Well if you actually lost weight with it, they couldn't complain.

They're the government. They can do whatever they want...

[abrannan]

Have you ever heard the term "Audit Flag"?

What exactly would raise a flag?  You deduct, oh, let's say, $1500 on your income taxes (itemized) with an item heading of exercise equipment.  That's all, you just have to make sure you have a medical report on hand that states that you are overweight and the receipts for everything you purchased, in case you happen to be audited.  You aren't going to get a flag raised for $1500.  A $40 a week personal trainer ($20/hour, two hours a week) will set you back $2000/year.  $1500 is not an out of line expense.  I think my writeoffs totaled somewhere in the $15K range last year, and I don't have any kids.  

Plus, you have 270,000,000 people in the US.  If only half of them pay taxes, that's 135,000,000.  You've got businesses on top of that (Estimates are that there are at least 1,000,000 new small businesses started each year)  You've got people writing off $20,000 boats as business expenses because they once talked about work for 2 hours on the boat.  You've got all sorts of other shadiness going on on tax returns.  A $1500 write-off is a drop in the bucket.

But there's always random audits, so make sure you're above board on this.

[GamingGreg]

Have you ever heard the term "Audit Flag"?

I imagine there are some limits as to how much you can deduct for "weight loss expenses", but considering how much some people already spend in this arena, it's probably pretty high.  Some weight loss equipment can be in the thousands of dollars, so a MAME DDR cab would be "in-line" with that already.  I'm not sure what documentation the IRS requires, and I'm not sure if "build-it-yourself exercise equipment" counts or not, but it sure would be nice if it did.

Any there any accountants or tax advisors out there that could verify the Validity of this idea?

[DaveMMR]

A good way to help lessen your chances of an audit is to file electronically.  Of course that tip came straight from the IRS, so who knows if they're just trying to bait people.

As for deducting a DDR cab: you might be skating on thin ice if you're trying to convince auditors (should that happen) that a large video game machine classifies as "exercise equipment".  Perhaps attach a copy of that article with your receipts.      

[abrannan]

A good way to help lessen your chances of an audit is to file electronically.  Of course that tip came straight from the IRS, so who knows if they're just trying to bait people.

As for deducting a DDR cab: you might be skating on thin ice if you're trying to convince auditors (should that happen) that a large video game machine classifies as "exercise equipment".  Perhaps attach a copy of that article with your receipts.      

Or reference the same site the article references, getupmove.com

[ChadTower]

I would love to get DDR on my upcoming mame machine... what would be the interface method for the dance pad?  

[kevin]

I would love to get DDR on my upcoming mame machine... what would be the interface method for the dance pad?  

If you're building your own pad, you can use the same method as your other buttons. If you're buying a pad, you can just pick up a psx/ps2/xbox pad and a usb adapter. The Stepmania site keeps a list of known adapter compatabilities. There are also some pads/games released for PCs, which I don't know much about.

-Kevin

[GamingGreg]

Did a little bit of tax research and it appears that not many could possibly deduct this, even if it could be made a legit deduction.  See this article here.

First it appears the doctor would have to declare you "obese", not just overweight, as "obesity" is the medical condition that is being treated.  I'm not sure how many pounds over the norm that has to be, but I know 10 or 20 extra pounds isn't going to put you into that category (unless your doctor is really leanient).  

Secondly this would get lumped into your other "unreimbursed medical expenses", and you have to have enough of those to be over 7.5% of your adjusted gross income.  This would exclude a lot of people, myself included, as I don't have lots of big medical bills.

The article (and other sources I looked at) never mention if "exercise equipment" as being deductable or non deductable.  They all say the unreimbused costs of a "weight loss program" are deductable.  I image that might include equipment, but I can't say for sure.

Anyway,  it looks like most of us wouldn't be able to do this, but maybe there's someone out there that still could.  

[Floyd10]

Hypothetical for ya kids...
If you were obese when you started this cabinet, and you lost ten pounds by when it was done, and were no longer obese, would you still get the deduction?

[Kremmit]

Posted by: DaveMMR  Posted on: June 07, 2004, 09:31:58 PM  

A good way to help lessen your chances of an audit is to file electronically.  Of course that tip came straight from the IRS, so who knows if they're just trying to bait people.  

You bet they are.  The IRS claims electronic filing will get you your refund sooner, lessen your chance of an audit, make you taller, anything they think will make you file electronically.  The reason is simple:  it costs them less if you do.  They don't have to pay real humans to haul your envelope & millions of others from the post office, open 'em, hand process 'em, etc.  

The truth is the exact opposite.  The computers that check your electronically filed return have a zillion things they look for to see if you might be cheating (audit flags!).  The poor bastard who has to read your hand-written return is far less thorough.  If you're pulling something shady, mail your return on April 15th, so it comes in at their busiest time.  Odds are good that the schmuck reading it just wants to get it out of the way, so he can move on to the next one (that has that iffy looking deduction for a video game for weight loss!)