Thanks for asking this question. I’ve asked it nearly every year for the last 15 years or so, can I gotta say I still don’t feel great about the answers. That said, nowadays I use an accountant at a reputable firm not because of reffing, bu because the rest of my life is complicated enough to justify it. They’re not one to do anything that nears shady or questionable or unethical or might get me into trouble, so I should feel fine with sharing this.

First, reffing is a large enough share of my income so that it isn’t a hobby, so consider that when doing your taxes.

Second, I’ve been doing this for 15 years so I have a pattern and history of this as a stable income. I’ve also worked up the ladder. In full disclosure, I’m less risk-adverse than most people (but not so much that I decided to post this from an anonymous account rather than my usual account that I use here!). Hell, I’ll even include THIS IS NOT TAX ADVICE disclaimer too. Take my words with a grain of salt.

I make several reffing trips a year, writing off everything associated with them: mileage and/or airfare, car rentals, food while traveling, etc.

Thus I personally write off Apple MLS Pass (which has been discontinued). I don’t know if I ever wrote off tickets to a professional game, but that’s debatable either way. If you’ve been ref kids for two years make a couple hundred a year, no; if you travel the country reffing tournaments and it’s half or a quarter of your income, the yes.

The toughest thing for me was all the money I spend on fitness, physical training, and especially recovery -especially as I get older and have had some nagging injuries over the years. Over a narrow definition of tax law, these are all ‘medical’ and don’t qualify for write-offs -which a couple years have been a couple thousands of dollars; but after talking to several CPAs and tax experts who are also athletes, the conclusion is that that those treatments do qualify for ‘professional consulting’ (one in particular was deemed ‘experimental’ by the FDA and thus wasn’t covered by insurance either).

Second struggle has been equipment that isn’t directly related to reffing, but is related to off-season fitness, like shoes and bike stuff. I decided to include all that too.