Perhaps the BEST B1G Forum anywhere, here at College Football Fan Site, CFB51!!!

couldn't pay in cash?

I need tax knowledge on my game earnings.  Not an official LLC, just on the side so far. 

My guess is right now your expenses, investment, revenue, etc. is fairly minimum and might just be considered a "hobby" for income tax purposes. Which means you have to claim all your income, but cannot deduct any of the expenses. Which sucks.

However, if you really intend this to be a going concern and have it treated as a business there are a fair number of issues and decisions you will have to make on how you account for things. There are things you can take as an expense immediately. There are probably a number of things that you are going to need to capitalize that can only be expensed over time. Whether you are going to account for things on an accrual, cash or modified accrual basis (Cash is generally the easiest). Whether you form an LLC or not generally doesn't matter at the moment for income tax, assuming you will form a single member LLC which will go straight to your 1040 anyway. 

One piece of advice. Track everything you spend on it and if feasible, have a separate bank account and credit card for whatever you do with your game. 

The problem you are going to have, is right now there probably isn't enough money to justify hiring someone to help you set things up and give you advice on what is the right decisions. Just remember any advice you get from people, like me here on the internet is generally worth what you pay for it. It might be good, it might not and generally they are not going to know every thing they need to know about your business to give distinct advice that absolutely fits your situation. 

I was paid cash for reffing soccer.  The U18 games paid $70 each to two of us, and I often was the only ref there.  U18 was pretty gun, it was coed, and the kids MOSTLY reffed themselves.  It's interesting when the players drive themselves to the game and there are no parents present.  There were times when I'd call an out of bounds for the red team and they'd all look at me seeing I was far away and point the other way, and I say go with it.  The girl players were often really good, they had to have one touch across midfield.  On occasion, two guys would kind of get into it, and I'd yell at them, WHAT ARE YOU DOING??? and they'd shake hands and stop.

I loved it, usually a nice day, $140 in cash, and some exercise and no complaints.  U11 was the worst, the coaches didn't know the rules often as not.  In soccer, if the ball doesn't cross the OB line, it's in bounds, but if it hooks and goes OB in the air and comes back in, it's out of bounds.

I guess one more "battle" with the "brothers" doesn't matter. Man, I hate this trend.

Disturbing message board chatter regarding 8 players which may not suit up for one of the two semis.  Not by choice.  Dare I fire up the bowl suspension and ineligible thread from years past?  I think it broke the year FSU had 20 odd dudes suspended. 

One of my close law school friends is fairly senior in this school's admin.  And he's having an ulcer over hearing about this.  The velocity at which this stuff spreads never ceases to amaze .

And we're being coy because.......