Ive been blessed?!

[quote name='King Royalty']thats a good idea! but wouldnt i still have to ship out the cards because some people will scam me like what the other guy said?[/QUOTE]
There are still some scammers here but you are a lot less likely to run into them. That and you can look at a persons history here before you agree to a deal where as with a buy it now on eBay you don't know their history until after they agree to buy. Oh and serious congrats man!
 
Don't forget about taxes. You'll probably get a 1099-MISC from the contest holder so keep that in mind.
 
[quote name='King Royalty']thats a good idea! but wouldnt i still have to ship out the cards because some people will scam me like what the other guy said?[/QUOTE]

ship out to those with little to no feedback, but if you see someone that has been around for a while and has a bunch of feedback you should rest easy in just giving them the code. Play it safe and go with your gut.
 
[quote name='JP']There are still some scammers here but you are a lot less likely to run into them. That and you can look at a persons history here before you agree to a deal where as with a buy it now on eBay you don't know their history until after they agree to buy. Oh and serious congrats man![/QUOTE]

Yeah, selling them on here for like $30-$35 would definitely be the way to go. You avoid all Ebay fees and the likelihood of running into a scammer is far less.
 
Congrats. A grand prize winner is among us.

Seriously, 30 years of XBL? Didn't those packaged XBL cards all have expiration date on them? Maybe those expiration date is just a moot point?

[quote name='mguiddy']Don't forget about taxes. You'll probably get a 1099-MISC from the contest holder so keep that in mind.[/QUOTE]
Typically for a sweepstakes prize over a certain value, the promoter would send out a release form asking for your SSN # before sending out the prize. If the OP didn't receive/send back such a form, no way they can send him a 1099-MISC. IRS wouldn't be happy about this.
 
[quote name='eau']Congrats. A grand prize winner is among us.

Seriously, 30 years of XBL? Didn't those packaged XBL cards all have expiration date on them? Maybe those expiration date is just a moot point?[/quote]
I believe others said that if they received an expired code last gen all they had to do was call/email MS and they activated it. Many of us were getting 2 month to 1 year codes from Kmart/Sears clearance that were 'expired' YEARS ago.
Typically for a sweepstakes prize over a certain value, the promoter would send out a release form asking for your SSN # before sending out the prize. If the OP didn't receive/send back such a form, no way they can send him a 1099-MISC. IRS wouldn't be happy about this.
Click to expand...
So if you win a prize that they send you and you paid NOTHING to win it, you still have to pay taxes on it?:lol: Good luck with that, IRS.
 
[quote name='IAmTheCheapestGamer']So if you win a prize that they send you and you paid NOTHING to win it, you still have to pay taxes on it?:lol: Good luck with that, IRS.[/QUOTE]

He paid $50 for that year of Live, sorry. IRS is coming.
 
[quote name='IAmTheCheapestGamer']
So if you win a prize that they send you and you paid NOTHING to win it, you still have to pay taxes on it?:lol: Good luck with that, IRS.[/QUOTE]
You're supposed to pay taxes/be taxed on contest winnings (that's over, I think, $600), yes.
 
[quote name='mguiddy']You're supposed to pay taxes/be taxed on contest winnings (that's over, I think, $600), yes.[/QUOTE]

From what I'm gathering, that's a myth and you're supposed to report prizes of any value. They only send you the 1099 if it's over $600. It's the government, so it doesn't have to make sense.


I have no idea how true any of that is, but it sounds plausible. I'd ask a tax guy just to be safe. That's a huge amount of money to take a chance on the way our government loses their shit if you're even a penny off.
 
[quote name='mguiddy']You're supposed to pay taxes/be taxed on contest winnings (that's over, I think, $600), yes.[/QUOTE]
Good luck with that Mr. IRS man. Then again I've never won anything over maybe $50 as far as contests go. I see what shitholes the tax dollars we do pay get tossed into and wasted, so they can pound sand if they expect me to pay taxes on any prizes I win.

I pay 6% bullshit sales tax, even on online sales paid for solely with store credit from GS anymore, so my state and our fed gov't can eat shit for trying to tax me further on anything I might win as a prize. That's 6% of my credit going to pay for lazy state employees who can't get shit done on time and UNDER budget and an incompetent fuckin' governor(Rendell).
 
[quote name='Survivalism']From what I'm gathering, that's a myth and you're supposed to report prizes of any value. They only send you the 1099 if it's over $600. It's the government, so it doesn't have to make sense.


I have no idea how true any of that is, but it sounds plausible. I'd ask a tax guy just to be safe. That's a huge amount of money to take a chance on the way our government loses their shit if you're even a penny off.[/QUOTE]

You have to pay taxes on any winnings amount. You will get a 1099 if the amount is over $600. Technically all earnings are taxable, so all those people "flipping" games for profit should be reporting that income on their taxes as well.
 
These guys are right about taxes though. You might get caught paying some for these. You can't even win a radio contest for some DVDs without filling out a tax form (personal experience).

I'm just sayin. Of course, you could watch the Shawshank Redemption and see if you can use that one time tax free gift to your spouse or something. My lawyer degree is from Google.
 
[quote name='jasonx']You have to pay taxes on any winnings amount. You will get a 1099 if the amount is over $600. Technically all earnings are taxable, so all those people "flipping" games for profit should be reporting that income on their taxes as well.[/QUOTE]
:rofl:
 
I'm surprise you didn't fill out the tax form beforehand. They usually send that out and make you fill it before sending you the prize if it's something over that $600 amount.
 
Damn, I didn't win! LOL But truthfully, I have won 4 of these contests on XBL, but none were for more than $50. Usually when they have the contests where there are "2000 equal grand prize winners of 1600 MSP each" those are the ones that I am a co-grand prize winner in.

And yes, ALL prize winnings are taxable by the IRS as Federal Income. So when you file your taxes at the end of the year, you'll have to pay the same amount of withholding as if you had a part-time job that had paid you $1900 for the year. Depending what tax bracket you are in, that's probably going to eat up $150-200 worth of any federal refund you would have otherwise gotten, and if you don't get that big of a refund, you'll have to pay the difference and get no refund.
 
Not sure if this has been bought up but since we should not be charged sales taxed on these in store, can he really be taxed otherwise? I was thinking the fact that these cards are part of a service and not a good may make a difference. Just a thought. *shrug*
 
I worked in a casino for years and jackpots over $1200 required a SSN, but nothing under did.
I would question how they would assess value on the 30 years of cards as they can only be used one at a time, unlike the point cards which are closer to cash. That is to say he can't get value from them himself except MSRP for one once a year. You could argue that they are worthless until redeemed. Of course selling them would kick in the "supposed to report all earnings" thing.
 
Wow, congrats. You are blessed indeed. You are surely set with XBL Time and XBLA!!! May I suggest Limbo, Braid, and Geometry Wars 2.
 
Dang dude. Congrats. It reminds me of when I won 10000 ms points a while back just 10x better. Have fun with all that.
 
[quote name='mguiddy']You're supposed to pay taxes/be taxed on contest winnings (that's over, I think, $600), yes.[/QUOTE]It is over $600.

When MS did their giveaway for Vista + Office 2007 a while back, the ARV was over $600 and I did receive a 1099-MISC for the item value that I had to file with my taxes as income.
 
[quote name='Vader582']Not sure if this has been bought up but since we should not be charged sales taxed on these in store, can he really be taxed otherwise? I was thinking the fact that these cards are part of a service and not a good may make a difference. Just a thought. *shrug*[/QUOTE]
It's not sales tax like you made a purchase. It's Income Tax like you received a paycheck from Microsoft. Any time you gain something of monetary value, the IRS classifies it as "INCOME" and adds that to your yearly income amount regardless of whether it was cash or not.

In fact, it doesn't even have to be contest winnings... Let's say you run up a $10,000 credit card bill, then stop making the payments and it goes to collections. Later, you strike a "settlement" deal with the company and they agree to settle the account for $2500. However, in the eyes of the IRS you just "made" $7500 worth of income because you "gained" that money that you wouldn't have otherwise, so as far as they're concerned, the fact that that debt was "forgiven" is no different than if some random guy on the street just gave you the other $7500, it still counts as taxable income.

So let's say the OP goes to file his federal income taxes this February, and his yearly income for 2010 was $30,000. Well, he now has an additional source of "income" in the amount of $1900, so now his yearly income is $31,900 and he'll have to pay taxes on that amount, which will eat into his refund since there was no withholding taken out of it at the time the money was "earned".

This is why when someone wins a slot machine jackpot, or a game show, or a drawing for a free car, they can choose whether to have the taxes taken out at the time, or they can wait and then it becomes due at the end of the year when they file their income taxes. It sucks to win a big prize if you can't afford to pay the taxes on it; you could end up in deep shit with the IRS...

EDIT: Also, to clarify the $600 misconception... ALL prize winnings are taxable income, even if they are just $1, however only prizes of $600 or more are automatically reported to the IRS by the company granting the prize. For smaller amounts, you are supposed to voluntarily report it yourself, technically. Just like how we all voluntarily report all of our online purchases at the end of the year so that we can pay the missing sales tax to our home states that we were supposed to have paid, right? ;)
 
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