Keeping Records - Taxes

[amulet]

FYI - Party will e-mail you a record of all deposits and withdrawals from when an account was opened to date. Fulltilt has also been very helpful. Plus everyone has e-mails confirming any account activity (from each site). I suspect if you contact any site they will help you get the records you need. Therefore, those of you without records should be able to file an accurate return. While the IRS prefers you to keep session by session records my tax attorney informed me that the record of deposits and withdrawals should be good enough to file and avoid criminal penalties.

[krazyace5]

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While the IRS prefers you to keep session by session

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By session do they mean from the time you sit down at a table til the time you stand up? Or by the day?

I have been keeping track of sessions by the week.

[Lottery Larry]

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While the IRS prefers you to keep session by session

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By session do they mean from the time you sit down at a table til the time you stand up? Or by the day?

I have been keeping track of sessions by the week.

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By the table, sit down to departure. As I said elsewhere, the rules never envisioned online gambling and the standard as is probably becomes overly cumbersome (documenting 6-tabling must be fun!)

[5thStreetHog]

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FYI - Party will e-mail you a record of all deposits and withdrawals from when an account was opened to date. Fulltilt has also been very helpful. Plus everyone has e-mails confirming any account activity (from each site). I suspect if you contact any site they will help you get the records you need. Therefore, those of you without records should be able to file an accurate return. While the IRS prefers you to keep session by session records my tax attorney informed me that the record of deposits and withdrawals should be good enough to file and avoid criminal penalties.

[/ QUOTE ]This cant be acceptable.If it is many good players would not have a losing session all year.I wish it was good enough,but your tax attorney is the first person i ever heard say this was acceptable.

[5thStreetHog]

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While the IRS prefers you to keep session by session

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By session do they mean from the time you sit down at a table til the time you stand up? Or by the day?

I have been keeping track of sessions by the week.

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By the table, sit down to departure. As I said elsewhere, the rules never envisioned online gambling and the standard as is probably becomes overly cumbersome (documenting 6-tabling must be fun!)

[/ QUOTE ]I think most people have concluded a session online to be from the time you sit at your first table,till the time you leave.Are people really having no problems claiming sessions as deposit-withdraw,or every week like the other poster says he does???This is contrary to everything i have ever learned on this subject.

[amulet]

5thstreet,
as i wrote:
he would prefer different records. but it shows income earned from poker, which if someone doesn't have the complete records they can't be accussed of filing a false return, therfore no criminal penalties. i believe there could still be a tax penalty.

[CallYNotRaise06]

cant you just use poker tracker for taxes/

[jively]

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cant you just use poker tracker for taxes/

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Yes, you can get detailed session records from PokerTracker. You would also need a record of bonuses and rakeback.

And I agree that if you are 6-tabling the same game, you could consider that one session. If you are playing 2 different games (like 1/2 and 2/4), that's 2 sessions. (This is similar to if you are in a B&M, play 2/4 while waiting for a 4/8 table, that's 2 sessions.)

-Tom

[Sand]

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cant you just use poker tracker for taxes/

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Yes, you can get detailed session records from PokerTracker. You would also need a record of bonuses and rakeback.

And I agree that if you are 6-tabling the same game, you could consider that one session. If you are playing 2 different games (like 1/2 and 2/4), that's 2 sessions. (This is similar to if you are in a B&M, play 2/4 while waiting for a 4/8 table, that's 2 sessions.)

-Tom

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The different limits issue is a product of the B&M session definition and really doesn't make sense online. IN B&M to change limits you need to get your butt out of one seat and put it in another - i.e. you took a break there. The one consistent part of the IRS opinions on this is the "break" part in splitting sessions.

Given that (and that I do all playing in one session at night) I just track daily. I track bonuses/RB and such daily as well (that helps with the "winnings are income but losses are itemized deductions" part of the IRS rules not to mention being in the proper spirit of what the IRS is after).

[Nehmer]

Ok, I've been reading that poker winning and losing sessions need to be tracked when reporting poker income as a hobby and not your main source of income, but what if you are filing as a professional? Last year my tax guy just had me report my net earnings, but I also filed as a professional and even have a business bank account and everything. Is this an issue I need to bring up with my tax guy this year?

[DING-DONG YO]

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Ok, I've been reading that poker winning and losing sessions need to be tracked when reporting poker income as a hobby and not your main source of income, but what if you are filing as a professional? Last year my tax guy just had me report my net earnings, but I also filed as a professional and even have a business bank account and everything. Is this an issue I need to bring up with my tax guy this year?

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If he just had you report net on line 21 other income, he is not a good tax guy. That is not an acceptable method for reporting gambling activity.

[jively]

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The different limits issue is a product of the B&M session definition and really doesn't make sense online. IN B&M to change limits you need to get your butt out of one seat and put it in another - i.e. you took a break there. The one consistent part of the IRS opinions on this is the "break" part in splitting sessions.

Given that (and that I do all playing in one session at night) I just track daily.

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So you don't take any breaks? What if you sit out for 3 hands to use the bathroom? What if you take a 30 minute break for food? How about in B&M if you take a 1-hour dinner break? How about 1 1/2 hours? Would any of those stay in the same session? Moving from a 2/4 table to a 4/8 table in a B&M might take all of 1 minute. That's not really a break.

-Tom

[ChipLeeder]

I am a practicing CPA (my job includes handling IRS audits).

I keep my records by day by sight.

All I do is enter my ending daily cash balance (on days I I play), as well as withdrawals, deposits and bonuses earned.

I have an excel spread sheet that I will e-mail upon request. It is fairly unsophisticated.

I believe it would be accepted by the IRS in this internet age. It does not meet the official requirement of records by table but I believe by experience it will suffice. It can handle up to about 8 different sights.

e-mail me: max_fly@hotmail.com and I will send you it.

[WalkAmongUs]

i still don't understand why no one has come up with a simple program that can extract tax information from PokerTracker.

I know this wouldn't cover all your tax needs but this would be a huge start.

[RED_RAIN]

A few things I noticed in this thread.

Talking to my CPA who looks into gambling laws and cases regularly disagrees with.

A) Tracking only withdrawals/deposits
B) Session = 1 week

I track by day, regardless if I play once or 15 times. It's about the spirit of the law, making a good faith effort. Tracking every table move for someone who plays 8 tables at once is not reasonable. Nor it is reasonable to think a month or year is a session.

Do as you wish, I guess it's more calculated risk on how far you want to stretch it.

[topAir]

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i still don't understand why no one has come up with a simple program that can extract tax information from PokerTracker.

I know this wouldn't cover all your tax needs but this would be a huge start.

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I took a look at writing a little program for this. I haven't figured out how to tell what some other users screenname is... If the user has an alias, then that record will reference the "main" account and alls good. If the user only has the one "main" account, then I don't know. I had more going on this weekend than I thought I would so I didn't look very hard. I'll take another look in the next couple days.

[WalkAmongUs]

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i still don't understand why no one has come up with a simple program that can extract tax information from PokerTracker.

I know this wouldn't cover all your tax needs but this would be a huge start.

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I took a look at writing a little program for this. I haven't figured out how to tell what some other users screenname is... If the user has an alias, then that record will reference the "main" account and alls good. If the user only has the one "main" account, then I don't know. I had more going on this weekend than I thought I would so I didn't look very hard. I'll take another look in the next couple days.

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I'd assume if someone actually wrote a decent program that people would pay money for it.

If I had any clue how to write a computer program I'd be all over this one. Stupid liberal arts degree.....

[topAir]

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i still don't understand why no one has come up with a simple program that can extract tax information from PokerTracker.

I know this wouldn't cover all your tax needs but this would be a huge start.

[/ QUOTE ]

I took a look at writing a little program for this. I haven't figured out how to tell what some other users screenname is... If the user has an alias, then that record will reference the "main" account and alls good. If the user only has the one "main" account, then I don't know. I had more going on this weekend than I thought I would so I didn't look very hard. I'll take another look in the next couple days.

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I'd assume if someone actually wrote a decent program that people would pay money for it.

If I had any clue how to write a computer program I'd be all over this one. Stupid liberal arts degree.....

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No worries about any money. It would be about time I contribute something instead of lurking. If I write it, maybe people could help me not suck so much at poker /images/graemlins/confused.gif

[6471849653]

Emails can show from where they came from but one can doctor them, so they are not worth anything additional until one can prove them correct. Would be better to take a picture from the account (including money there at some time - often not possible to prove the exact date though. And the money taken out from there. Some sites may have just e.g. a 60 day history) so one has something more solid when one gets audited - additionlly any bank and internet bank pictures and prints, not just Poker Tracker that's good in EU at least for counting the monthly scores - there's no need to have session nor daily scores as PT is adding it all up; who is interested about smalled details? (If someone is, one may have the hand histories that so are per hand accurate, not just by session or a day.) What matters is that records are kept (like monthly in case some tracker does the adding, and the scores are there by table too, though no-one will ever look into them, that's just another argument why no table nor session stats are needed to be kept if one uses a Poker Tracker, and in case one wants or needs then a picture and prints with proven dates will be necessary, maybe a daily newspaper every day added to it will be worth something). It's generally still impossible to prove exactly what one has made.

[kassdog]

I'm not a pro player or anything so i have no clue on this stuff. Why would you need detailed records for each day. After all I don't give detailed records for my job of how much I make each day so why isn't a week or month or year acceptable. Cant you just say I won x amount this year.

[RoundGuy]

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Why would you need detailed records for each session

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Corrected your sentence. Answer -- because the IRS says so.

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After all I don't give detailed records for my job of how much I make each day so why isn't a week or month or year acceptable.

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Because the IRS says so.

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Can't you just say I won x amount this year.

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No. Why? Because the IRS says so.

You don't have to like it, or understand it, but you have to follow the rules anyway. Welcome to the wonderful world of paying taxes...

[I_C_ALL]

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It's generally still impossible to prove exactly what one has made.

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I think we can get pretty close with online gambling. B&M, I agree, but with online, there are electronic trails to follow. I can export to quicken and pull every deposit/withdrawal to neteller or any site. In the end, that's what the IRS will do. Follow the money and add it up.