The Tax Man Cometh

[ChristinaB]

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You are going to get raped if you don't file as professional and get auditied.

Filing as a professional does have its advantages, however.

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Yes, definitely file as a professional. Don't fool yourself into thinking that because you may be a full time student or something else (you didn't specify) that your $60K income almost all from poker can somehow be qualified as casual income.

They can penalize you big time for avoiding FICA taxes too. Start doing it right from the start, you won't regret it. There are grey areas between professional and casual - but you are not in one - you are a professional.