Re: Poker for a living and taxes
 

Hey King:

Maybe this will help?

Important Information

Re: Poker for a living and taxes
 

yeah, lucky if I could win lol.

Re: Poker for a living and taxes
 

[ QUOTE ]

Also, you'd have to risk thouands of dollars playing poker, how can anyone afford to give 40% of it to the goverment?

[/ QUOTE ]

Play you heads up

Re: Poker for a living and taxes
 

The legal advice given thus far is wholly inaccurate. Under the Internal Revenue Code, gambling is clearly defined as "taxable income." However, the trick is that all gambling losses can be deducted against all gambling winnings. This is known as the "basketing approach," (i.e. you can only deduct gambling gains against gambling losses...you cannot deduct other income gains with gambling losses).

Thus, as lawyers, we are trained to find a way around the system...how do poker players really verify that they had certain losses to deduct against corresponding gains? B&M casinos don't exactly give you a receipt everytime you cash in for chips, so how do you have any proof that you actually "lost" money to be able to take a hefty deduction?

My advice...go to your local horse racing facility and scoop up all the losing "tickets" you can get your hands on. All of these tickets are evidence of gambling losses, and fortunately for you, there is no name on the horse race ticket, so if you're in possession of the ticket the I.R.S. will presume it was your ticket that was a losing wager.

Moral of the story: all you "winning" poker players who actually report their income to the I.R.S. now have a brilliant way to offset those increases in taxable income!

Re: Poker for a living and taxes
 

First you say...
[ QUOTE ]
The legal advice given thus far is wholly inaccurate.

[/ QUOTE ]
Then you procede to advise people to break the law. Hmm.

Re: Poker for a living and taxes
 

All very well except

1)You're breaking the law.

2)You're still going to have to declare reasonable winnings if you are a pro to justify your standard of living if you ever get investigated.

Ultimately it sounds similar to any other cash in hand business, you can significantly reduce the tax you pay if you're willing to break the law.

What I find difficult to understand is why the top players continue to live in the U.S.

You can't really hide the fact you've won a WSOP or WPT event and you are going to potentially pay millions in tax.