Who Pays Taxes on Poker Earnings? (POLL)

[Mempho]

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The line of questioning might go something like this:

Q: So, how did you afford $80,000 car.
A: I won the money playing poker. As you can see, I reported $120,000 in winnings this year.

Q: Ahh, I see. You say you play 30/60? How did you get the money for that? We have no poker earnings for you last year? Is this your first year? Do you have a backer?
A: Uhhhhhh

Q: Sir, could we see....???
A: That's priveleged information.

Q: Not in IRS terms. I think the judge would like to know how you are special and Willie Nelson is not.


For those of you that don't think you can go to prison, you are wrong. I know someone that went to prison for evasion (I think it was 2 years with 6 months served, plus he still had to pay a huge bill).

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Anyone dumb enough to spend 80,000 on a car and NOT report the gambling winnings that funded the purchase deserves to get audited and go to jail. not for tax evasion, but for stupidity.

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You would be surprised. I know a pro who bought a large house on untaxed poker winnings. Needless to say, it was way more than $80,000.

[MrMoo]

I go by a session = one day. I wrote a simple script which will run through a session export from Poker Tracker, total wins/losses for each day and print them out.

I posted the script in the software forum about a week ago if you're interested.

[Mempho]

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Your sales tax deduction can be your choice of either your actual sales tax paid or an arbitrary amount that is based on your AGI. Since your AGI is severely inflated, your sales tax deduction will be inflated. This, of course, was not thought about when the sales tax deduction was made law, but we should be glad to have it.


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How does an inflated AGI lead to an inflated sales tax. Well first, I guess i'd need to have a full understanding of the relationship of a sales tax to poker. How does sales tax relate to poker... what are you referring to when you say "on the table".. is the sales tax the rake? If not, is there anyway you can deduct based on rake?


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The sales tax deduction only relates to poker in this way: First, since you have to deduct out your losses as an itemized deduction, you will lose your standard deduction and be itemizing. The sales tax deduction is an itemized deduction that every itemizer should take. Second, the amount you can take for your sales tax deduction is higher than it should be because you have a higher AGI than you should. This makes the sales tax deduction very important. If you have no other itemized deductions, you want as high an AGI as you can possibly get in order to maximize your sales tax deduction. This is the one situation where not being able to lump can actually help you. I, in fact, saved something like $200 on my federal taxes this year because of this.

[Mempho]

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I go by a session = one day. I wrote a simple script which will run through a session export from Poker Tracker, total wins/losses for each day and print them out.

I posted the script in the software forum about a week ago if you're interested.

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I really like this. Here it is...

Script

[MrMoo]

I will be paying taxes on most of my winnings.

I rarely play B&M and when I have, I didn't keep track of the necessary info that I needed to report in my taxes. My winnings have been unsubstantial so I won't be reporting them.

I also will not be reporting my ring game play. After finding out I'm a losing player at 5/10 6-max I'm slightly above even for the year. I won't be reporting this because it will increase my gross income a little over $6,000. I justify not reporting ring game play because my net income for all of ring play is only a couple hundred dollars. While it may not be 100% legal, I don't feel my tax bracket should be increased by gambling that I didn't really "win".

I will be reporting all bonuses, rakeback, and tournament play. The amounts are significant enough that even if I wanted to hide it, I would be leaving a trail that would be found in the event I was audited.

I have gone up against the IRS before and lost. I don't look forward to doing it again. Essentially I was naive and used a "crooked" tax agency who wrote off a bunch of stuff that I shouldn't have. "Oh you work in computers, we'll just deduct your home computer and part of your room as work space". I didn't get audited. I got a notice saying that I owed x dollars. I could pay or they would audit me. I paid. They came after me slightly less than 3 years after I filed. Right before the deadline.

[Mempho]

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I have gone up against the IRS before and lost. I don't look forward to doing it again. Essentially I was naive and used a "crooked" tax agency who wrote off a bunch of stuff that I shouldn't have. "Oh you work in computers, we'll just deduct your home computer and part of your room as work space". I didn't get audited. I got a notice saying that I owed x dollars. I could pay or they would audit me. I paid. They came after me slightly less than 3 years after I filed. Right before the deadline.

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That will be the story of at least 5 people in this discussion within the next 5 years. You don't think the IRS knows about poker yet? They do and many believe (like the Cardplayer columinists) that they intend to make it a priority.

[Mempho]

They start on page 60 of this PDF document. 2005 is not on the site yet, but this should help you get a good idea.

1040 Filing Instructions

[broiler]

The problem with the sales tax deduction is that it is taken in place of the state income taxes paid deduction. I am from NY and very few people benefit from the sales tax deduction. If you live in a high income tax state, then the sales tax deduction is worthless for the majority of tax payers. I would estimate that less than 10% of the returns that I prepared could take advantage of the sales tax deduction. My guess is that the percentage is actually less than 5%.

You are right when you say that the boost in AGI causes the table method for the sales tax deduction to increase. I will also agree that for the low/no income tax states that the addition of the sales tax deduction was a great thing.

[ISF]

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Until there's a change, the law is the law, imo.

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All of these arguments seem pretty irrelivent. It just comes down to is the Probability of getting cought times the punishment worth more then the money you would save from not paying. For internet as it may be traceable this may be the case for many people. For occational live play one would need an increadible risk aversion level for this to be the case.
If you get utility from paying your taxes fine factor that in, but many dont.

[Mempho]

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The problem with the sales tax deduction is that it is taken in place of the state income taxes paid deduction. I am from NY and very few people benefit from the sales tax deduction. If you live in a high income tax state, then the sales tax deduction is worthless for the majority of tax payers. I would estimate that less than 10% of the returns that I prepared could take advantage of the sales tax deduction. My guess is that the percentage is actually less than 5%.

You are right when you say that the boost in AGI causes the table method for the sales tax deduction to increase. I will also agree that for the low/no income tax states that the addition of the sales tax deduction was a great thing.

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You are correct. I live in Tennessee and there is no income tax (thus the benefit for me).