[okayplayer]

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Right. My point is that I don't get why anyone would want to be a professional gambler. Why don't I just stay non-professional and not file a schedule SE and not pay the extra taxes?

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Man, there needs to be some sticky thread where all these tax threads are put in so we can stop this every 3 days.

If you don't file as a pro, you have to list each winning session and add them to your net income for the year, and you can then deduct each losing session. A session is basically when you sit down at a table and then leave; this is easily trackable in PT.

If you file as a pro, you claim your net winnings. Also, you can deduct expenses. And it's not an additional 15% tax, it's half of that, and actually slightly less. Your employer usually pays the other half. It also stops after 88k income level.

As an after thought, I'm not an expert, but intuitively, I would think that you might end up paying that extra tax anyways... let's say you have a job that pays 40k, and you earn 40k playing poker. Your SS/Medicare tax from your job is like 7.5% b/c your employer pays the other half, now when you add in the poker income, it will bring your net to 80k, and the govt. will expect you to have paid 80k worth of SS/Medicare tax (15%), but it will show that you only paid 40k worth of that tax and they will charge you the extra 15% of that 40k anyways. Because the govt gets 15% SS/Medicare tax from EVERYONE, the only difference being your employer pays half. Now unless you can convince your current employer, if you have one, to pay that half of your SS/Medicare tax for your poker income, I would expect the govt to expect that 15%...

This is just a thought, and in no way fact.