Lamar Odom Seeks Tax Deduction For NBA Fines and F

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Playing upon a different court, Los Angeles Lakers basketball forward Lamar Odom has sued the Internal Revenue Service, which said he couldn’t take tax deductions for $12,Constellation couple ( really very accurate ! ) Fo,000 in sports fines and another $178,beats by dr. dre monster pro detox,000 spent getting himself in shape.
The 6-foot-10 Odom,How to love your girlfriend,  an important cog in the Lakers’  two-seasons-in-a-row championship performance, filed suit in U.S. Tax Court to fight an IRS bill for $87,000 over his taxes for 2007.  That includes $9,000 in interest. However, unlike many IRS efforts to collect money, the bill did not include a claim for accuracy-related penalties. This might mean the agency sees his case somewhat less harshly than others it duns.
A college dropout, Odom  is representing himself without a lawyer. In his personally signed pleading, filed at the court’s Washington, D.C. office on October 25, Odom disputed a bill that the IRS sent him in August. “The taxpayer claimed $12,000 of employee business expenses for fines that were assessed by the National Basketball Association,” he declared, writing in the third person. “These fines are commonly assessed on professional athletes and are work related. Therefore the fines incurred are ordinary and necessary employee business expense.” The petition, which listed his address as an agent’s office in Los Angeles, offered no details about the nature of transgressions leading to the fines.
Federal law generally prohibits tax deductions for financial sanctions resulting from criminal cases and matters like traffic violations. But Odom wrote, “The fines imposed by the team and the NBA are not imposed for the violation of any government law and are therefore not specifically excluded.”
On the same reasoning,power balance Bracelet sale,A sister who is very happy !, Odom, now 31, also attacked an IRS decision not to allow taxpayers  in effect to subsidize his efforts as a pro athlete to stay fit. “The taxpayer claimed $178,337 of employee business expenses for professional training and conditioning,” he wrote. “The taxpayer’s employment contract requires that the taxpayer be in sufficient physical condition that allows him to perform as a professional basketball player throughout the basketball season.”
Tax law and court cases have tended to frown on writing off such items. In the explanation attached to its bill, the IRS wrote Odom, “We have disallowed some of the expenses you claimed as business expenses because it was determined they were personal expenses and not deductible.”
The oft-injured but tenacious Odom  is probably good for the money. Papers attached to his pleading put his 2007 adjusted gross income at $9.3 million. News reports say he is in the the second year of a deal with the Lakers worth up to $33 million. In addition,U.S. prices - the United States access to and exch, he is a paid endorser for Samsung cell phones and has his own line of clothing.
A native New Yorker and product of a broken family, Odom certainly has some experience with non-governmental sanctions.  His budding career as a player at University of Nevada,  Las Vegas was aborted in 1997 when a NCAA investigation said he had received $5,600 from a school booster.  After one season at the University of Rhode Island, Odom went pro. But in his third season with the Los Angeles Clippers, in 2001, he was suspended for violating the NBA’s anti-drug policy.
Following one year with the Miami Heat,Balance Bracelet online store, he joined the Lakers in 2004, where he remains. In 2009 he married television reality star Khloé Kardashian.
Declares his slick Web site, “Lamar has experienced more breathtaking highs and shattering lows than most people can imagine.”
Research assistance by Janeace Slifka.