The homepage is the short version. This is the whole of it: what officials miss at tax time, what RefTraq does all season, how it is set up, and how it compares.
None of these are loopholes. They are ordinary rules that nobody explains to officials, because nobody writes tax guidance for people who work Friday nights.
“But the games happen at the stadium” stopped being a problem in 1997, when Congress said a home office counts if it’s the only fixed place you do the admin. The deduction is worth a few hundred dollars; what it unlocks is the real money — with one, the drive from your front door to a game is business mileage, not commuting. The catch is exclusive use: a spare room counts, the end of the dining table doesn’t.
You can deduct the standard rate per mile or your actual car costs — but if you claim actual expenses in a vehicle’s first business year, that vehicle is generally locked out of the standard rate for good. Most officials make that choice by accident, on a return they didn’t read closely. Starting with the standard rate keeps both doors open.
Assignor fees, chapter dues, background checks, per-game processing. They’re deductible business expenses, and they are the easiest ones in the world to forget — there’s no receipt, because you never touched the money. It only comes off your check.
Several schools pay you through one payment processor, and one 1099 arrives covering all of them. Meanwhile you tracked every game by school. Add up the games, add the 1099 on top, and the same money is on your return twice — an easy mistake, and a real one.
RefTraq knows who actually paid you: which of your money will be on a form, which will not, and that the forms are already inside your total, never added to it. No assigning platform can tell you that, because none of them sees the cash and the checks.
Figures are illustrative for a typical season, not a promise and not tax advice. RefTraq shows you your numbers and hands them to whoever files your return.
Chasing five schools for money. Remembering when to leave. A glovebox of receipts. Working out in March what any of it was worth. RefTraq does that job — so you do the one you signed up for.
The schedule your assigner already publishes syncs in on its own. Home tells you when to leave for your first game and when to be there — a double-header at one field is one trip — and the off-schedule game you took on the phone goes in with one sentence.
Your own fee schedules price every game — playoff rounds, double-headers, travel bands. See who still owes you, photograph a check to record it, print a pay sheet for each assigner, and know which of your money will be on a 1099 and which will not.
Every mile at the IRS rate in effect the day you drove, forty officiating expense categories, and a once-a-year deduction review that asks you the questions. The home office and both car methods side by side — ending in a one-page tax meeting sheet and a CPA-ready Schedule C. Conservative by design: capture everything, let your preparer decide.
Say it: “drove to Arnett Mead and back” logs the trip. Photograph a receipt and it fills in the expense. Drop in last season’s spreadsheet — or a photo of your chapter’s fee sheet — and it comes in, checked for duplicates before anything is saved.
Next up: your crew — the who’s-driving and where-to-meet that lives in a group text today.
No new habits during the season — the work happens where the data already lives.
Point RefTraq at the calendar feed your assigning platform already publishes. New assignments flow in on their own. Off-schedule game? Add it from your phone in 15 seconds.
Enter your fee schedule by sport, level, and position — travel fees included. From then on, every synced game prices itself. No platform exposes fee data; your rate table is the fix.
Two-tap mileage from any game at the current IRS rate (76¢/mi Jul–Dec 2026 — RefTraq tracked the midyear change so you don't have to), expenses as they happen, and at tax time a one-click Schedule C CSV your CPA will actually thank you for.
Assigning platforms schedule you. Generic tax apps don't know what a Plate fee is. Nothing connects the two — that's the job.
| What you need | RefTraq | Spreadsheet | Generic tax apps | Assigning platforms |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| One P&L across every sport & assigner | manual | — | — | |
| Fees auto-filled from your own rate table | manual | — | partial | |
| Unpaid-game flagging | manual | — | — | |
| Game-linked, IRS-format mileage log | — | generic | — | |
| Officiating expense categories | manual | generic | — | |
| Schedule C export | manual | — | ||
| Every payer in one income total — cash and checks too | manual | — | their own only | |
| Which income will be on a 1099, and which will not | manual | — | their own only | |
| Pay sheet for each assigner | manual | — | — | |
| Crew logistics | coming | — | — | — |
| Cost | free in beta | free | ~$100+/yr | set by assigner |
Sign up with your email, paste in the schedule feed you already get from your assigner, and RefTraq starts building your season P&L. While the beta is small you get setup help directly from the founder — a working official himself.
Create your free account →Rather talk to a human first? Email the founder.
Free during beta · no credit card · no password to remember — we email you a one-tap link. Runs in any browser today; the iOS and Android apps are in development. Your data is yours: export your full Schedule C summary and mileage log to CSV whenever you want.