Disclaimer: While I am a weird person who likes and studies taxes for fun, I am not a tax professional. Please check with a tax pro if you need specific advice.
Welcome to my game show tax guide! I've met a lot of people in the last year who have won things on game shows (congrats!!) and hopefully this will help you determine what taxes you must file and pay. A couple of key points:
- As implied by the title, this guide is for game shows that tape in California. The concepts should be similar for game shows that tape in other states, but you will have to check with those states for the details.
- This is only for US citizens. I don't know enough about foreign taxes to make a guide for non-US citizens who win something on a US game show.
- When I say "winnings," I'm only referring to the winnings you actually kept. You do not have to report or pay taxes on prizes you turned down.
- All references to specific forms, schedules, and lines are based on 2023 forms (i.e. the return you fill out in early 2024). They could move to different places in other years.
- I'm assuming you lived in one state for all of 2023. Part year residency situations are beyond the scope of this guide.
- If you lived in California, you only have to fill out two returns: a federal return and a CA resident return.
- If you lived outside CA in a state that doesn't have income taxes, then you need to fill out two returns: a federal return and a CA non-resident return.
- If you lived outside CA in a state that does have income taxes, then you need to fill out three forms: a federal return, a CA non-resident return, and a standard resident return for whatever state you lived in.
To start: No matter where you live, and whether you do taxes by hand or by software, you should start by filling out your federal 1040.
Federal taxes
If you won $600 or more, you will receive a 1099-MISC form from your game show that shows how much you won. You don't have to attach this form to your 1040 as the game show will send the IRS a copy of it. If you won less than $600, you probably won't get such a form. You still must report and pay taxes on your winnings. All income is taxable, whether the source of the income reported it to the IRS or not.
The amount you won is considered "ordinary income," meaning it's taxed the same as if you earned it at a job, interest on a bank account, or anything else that's taxable at a normal rate. However, do note you don't have to pay Social Security or Medicare tax on your game show winnings.
If you do taxes yourself, you must report your winnings on Schedule 1, line 8i ("Prizes and Awards.")
If you use tax software to do your taxes, then look in your software for an "other income" or an "unusual income" section and input the amount you won from the game show in the prizes and awards field. I personally don't use tax software, so I don't know exactly where to look in any specific program.
State taxes if you live in California
If you live in California, then you didn't have any taxes taken out on your winnings in advance. You should fill things out in this order:
- Start by doing your federal tax form, including your game show winnings as explained above.
- Then complete your CA return. There's really no more complexity than normal, because your winnings were included in your federal tax calculations, and thus they will be automatically "transferred" to your CA return as income there. Fill out your CA return as normal; you will likely owe taxes because you haven't paid them yet on the prizes you won.
State taxes if you don't live in California
- Start by doing your federal tax form, including your game show winnings as explained above.
- Fill out a CA non-resident tax return. Even if you didn't win enough to have estimated CA tax taken out of your winnings, CA still wants to know about your winnings and take taxes on them. More details are provided below.
- If your state has income taxes, fill out your state income tax return third. You should be able to get a credit for at least some of the taxes you paid to CA. Some details are below.
After schedule CA is done, fill out form 540NR. This is a pretty straightforward form (by US tax standards); just follow the instructions, transferring the data from schedule CA where appropriate. The only catch is whether you had estimated taxes taken out of your winnings. If you won $1500 or more, then CA required you to pay 7% of your winnings in estimated tax, either by taking it out of the cash you won or, if you didn't win enough cash, making you send a check or similar to the game show before you could get your prizes. This 7% is probably above what you actually owe, so you'll likely get money back from CA in that case (I got about 2/3 of my payment back). In any event, you either have received or will receive a form 592-B that indicates exactly how much you won and how much was taken out. The key part of that form is part IV:
That amount goes into form 540NR, line 83:
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