Protect Your Pool!

• Pages: 18-19
• Date: 01 January 2024
• Subject Matter: Civil Law

Protect Your Pool!

Oce lottery pools are a common phenomenon, but what happens if your pool wins?

According to Jon Hyman of Ohio Employer Law Blog, more money, more problems. With

large sums on the line, oce pools that are lucky enough to win may be unlucky enough

to be sued. Hyman claims the legal risks fall into two major categories—either an em-

ployee claims the winning ticket for himself and is sued by other pool members or an

absent employee who was not able to participate sues. To mitigate risk, the safest course

of action is a written contract signed by each member of the pool. Acknowledging those

agreements are rare, Hyman asserts less formal risk mitigation measures may also be

eective: (1) appoint one person to collect money, buy tickets, and act as custodian;

(2) buy only as many tickets as money actually collected; (3) keep a list of contributors,

perhaps with each person’s signature evidencing their participation; and (4) distribute

copies of purchased tickets

to all participants before the

drawing to eliminate disputes

about whether a ticket belongs

to pool or an individual. On the

o chance that your pool wins,

Hyman claims “the worst that

will happen is that you might

have to wait a bit for your pot

o’ gold while some legal issues

sort themselves out.”

New Travel Reimbursement Rates

for Taxpayers

Is business travel i n your future for 2024? Accord ing

to Kelly Phillips Erb’s Ta xgi rl (publishe d by Forbes), the

Internal Revenue Service (IRS)

published it s new per diem rates

for business-traveling taxpayers.

The IRS allows the u se of per diem

rates to make reimbur sements for

lodging, me als, and inci dental ex-

penses easier for employers and

employees. Be cause the cost of

travel varies depe nding on destin a-

tion, the IRS ha s establishe d spe-

cial rates for cert ain destinations.

For high-cost l ocalities, e.g., San

© Getty Image s

Francisco, the per d iem rate is $309, as opposed to $214

for other contine ntal U.S. l ocalities. Fo r reimbursem ent of

meals and inci dental expens es only, the per diem is s imi-

larly propor tional, at $74 for high- cost localities and $64

for other local ities. Per diem p ayments are not con sidered

wages for tax pur poses so long as th e payments do not

exceed the federal p er diem rate and the employee timely

provides an expens e report. The r eport must i nclude the

business pur pose of the trip, the da te and place of the

trip, and receipt s for lodging (if us ing the meals-o nly per

diem rate). Failure by the employee to tim ely provide an

expense repor t meeting all those criteria results i n the

reimbursem ent being taxab le. Also, while employers may

pay more than the fed eral per diem rate, Erb points out

the excess is taxable to the e mployee.

WINTER 2024 • VO L. 49 NO. 2

18 | ABA LITIGATION SECTIO N

Published i n Litigation News Vo lume 49, Numbe r 2, Winter 2024. © 2 024 by the Americ an Bar Assoc iation. Repro duced with perm ission. All r ights reser ved. This infor mation or any por tion thereof

may not be copied o r disseminated i n any form or by any means o r stored in an elec tronic databas e or retrieval system w ithout the expres s written consen t of the American Ba r Association .

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