Question on paying taxes on poker winnings.

[Desdia72]

did anybody ever answer his original question? it seems as if this thread has gone off in another direction.

*or was, "get an accountant" the answer?*

[Drac]

When I was younger I thought every person receiving assistance from the government was a leach and worthless. Get a job, get a life, go to school, etc. were things I frequently said. Then I started to work in some of the poorest urban areas and saw these people up close and personal. Yep, some of them took their welfare money across the street, bought smokes, cheesy puffs and candy bars, pop and other assorted crap. No doubt about it. In my experience these were the minority. They're the ones you hear about all the time but they were clearly the minority in my part of town. There were a lot more of them that worked multiple (low paying) jobs and still couldn't make ends meet. When I was put in the middle of the situation instead of looking at it from my comfy middle class life I realized that I didn't know what the hell I was talking about.
As pointed out in a previous post, what is the likely result if you stop the "redistribution" of income? If you let the poor wallow in misery there will come a time when they'll turn into an angry mob and all the money you saved with your new, lower tax rates will not help save your ass. I'm not saying that our system is the best by any means, but you can't have extremes of wealth in a society without some explosive results. Is it "fair" that those that make more pay more? I don't think you'll every have an agreement on that topic. BTW, if all of your ditch diggers got better jobs who would do the necessary manual labor? Now we allow people to come into the country illegally to perform many of these tasks. Somebody has to shovel the [censored] but shouldn't they be paid a livable wage to do necessary labor?
If you don't think we're well on the road to communism then you don't have a clue. Corporate welfare eats into all of our hard earned dollars. Why the hell do we continue to bail out the airline industry? Let it fail. It's a broken model. It will be replaced by something that works. There is a demand for the service, therefore a supply will be created. Our government doesn't need to give them money while they pay their CEO's millions of dollars to fail. Federal, state, and local governments continue to give welfare to companies all over the US. Then we allow US companies to avoid paying taxes by registering in foreign countries. Where do you think the money comes from that they no longer pay in taxes? You and me, that's where. Why the hell does our government let this happen? Why do we let it happen? Yet our government continues to spend our tax dollars doing business with companies that do just this. Oh sure, they still pay some taxes but they sure as hell dodge a lot of them or why would they be doing it? I guess in my world these are bigger issues than supporting do nothing poor people. I'm no left wing wacko looking to take your money (or mine) and pass it out to the masses. I just think that some of the things mentioned in this thread go way overboard with the "Oh, poor me, I work hard and get screwed with taxes" theory. Clearly the super wealthy benefit from our system more than anybody else. Do we all think that they give money to politicians for nothing? The Left and Right are both deep in the pockets of big corporations and wealthy individuals. BTW, I believe Bill Gates asked that the tax rates NOT be reduced for the wealthy as he wouldn't miss the money and maybe it could be put to good use improving schools, etc.
I'm not trying to piss anybody off or attack, etc. This thread just struck a cord in the middle of the night and led to the above rant. Our tax system is WAY F'd up, waste is prevelant throughout the system, and I don't want to pay taxes on my poker money! That's money I TRULY earn.

[AlexM]

[ QUOTE ]
Regardless of what country Paradise is in, as a US citizen, you are legally and morally required to pay taxes on your winnings.

[/ QUOTE ]

Legally, yes, but you aren't "morally" required to submit to theft. Better to keep your politics out of your posts, eh? [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

[Blarg]

Corporate welfare makes welfare to poor people look like nothing at all.

[djcolts]

FAQ for Taxes on Online Poker Sessions

I'm a small-time player (highest limits I've played is 1/2, higher SNG/tourney fee is 20/2 - normally a 10/1 player). According to this, even though I've netted about $100, I'll have to report this as (this is a guess) $4000 of income, and (maybe) deduct $3900 as expenses. If I continue to play at this pace throughout the year (assuming that I don't improve), this would be possibly $20000 of income, $19500 for expenses, for a measly $500 of profit. I would think that my Roth IRA contributions and my mortgage interest deductions could be in jeopardy for someone who is playing for a hobby. Can anyone enlighten me on this??

[riverflush]

Kurn....

I'm with you all the way, my man. Good posts.

I think the largest irony amongst those of us who trend Libertarian is that people with libertarian thought are inherently skeptical of government; therefore, it is highly unlikely that Libertarians will ever make any progress within our current system: Too many of us just hold such a low opinion of the big government machine that we're too busy actually doing things like starting businesses to run for office. We move forward in spite of government.

The golden irony. To us, government is essentially obsolete, so why join in?