[Mr.K]

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the IRS imposes very high standards...

Read my original post again. The IRS doesn't "impose" anything. They don't have the authority. They offer their interpretation of the law and do so in a light that is most favorable to them. Just because they say it doesn't make it so.

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Well, this is a very important question -- when using Schedule C is acceptable and when it is not. Ed, you commented that "if you treat poker as a business" Schedule C might be an option. My impression prior to your comment was that poker had to actually be your primary source of income to utilize Schedule C. Any chance you guys could delve further into where the line is drawn?

For those of us that approach poker as "a great part-time job" -- e.g. a business but not our primary enterprise -- I take it we might be out of luck on Schedule C.

Knowing what little I do about this, some considerations about whether a particular player approaches poker as a business or not:

- Does the player log long hours on weekends and weekdays playing? If the player plays only on weekends, that would hurt his/her ability to make the case, but perhaps not be fatal.

-If a player could show that they've dedicated 20 hours or more per week over a sustained period of time, I believe this would be a step in the direction of business and away from entertainment.

-The very fact that those of us who use PT (and have therefore PAID for PT) to collect careful records means we are taking a serious, profit-driven approach to the game rather than just flinging some chips around over beers with our pals.

- Has a player invested in improving his ability to win more money? Buying books/videos, or attending training sessions would bolster this argument, and in doing so further solidify the business argument.

- Does the player travel and incur other expenses in order to conduct his/her poker business? If you want to argue that playing live is important to 1.) your bottom line, and 2.) your continued improvement to win money while playing poker as a "business," you should save all receipts from trips to B&M casinos for parking, food, gas, room, etc. This will surely help show that you're treating the game as a business.

Hell, I could go on but there's really a lot of material to cover here.

The thing I keep going over and over in my mind that I just flat out don't get is why the US tax law makes almost every American that walks into a casino a tax evader. I have to say that there's just no way 95% of people who sit down and gamble a few hundred on their Vegas trip with friends know the law re: winning sessions. They sure as hell aren't keeping contemporaneous records with the table number, amount won, time and date. They aren't reporting the winning sessions, in part because most Americans lose when they play blackjack or whatever, they figure "hey, I lost money, what the hell do I owe taxes on?" if they think about the tax implications at all. The tax code badly needs a safe harbor for recreational players who have winnings under $5,000 in a year or something along those lines. Maybe $1,000 -- who knows. Point being, the rules should be clear and are not, and capture far more people than could reasonably have ever been intended by Congress.