[Bobo Fett]

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If say I made 50k a year playing online, and say I had to pay about 10k in taxes, how much can I write off ? Say if I had 4k in writeoffs, would that come directly off the 10k so now I would only owe 6k ? Or would it somehow come off the 50k and now I may owe something like 8-9k in taxes ? If I go to the dentist is that also a writeoff as well ? Thx, also is there anyone in the Vancouver region who could suggest a good accountant who specializes in this area ? I took a quick browse through the yellow pages but saw nothing in their that said they specialize in this area.

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I am absolutley NOT an authority on these matters in any way, but I think your questions can be answered quite simply.

When you are writing off expenses, they come off your income, NOT your taxes. The idea being that you pay taxes on your actual profit. IE if you brought in $50,000 and had expenses of $10,000, you pay taxes on your $40,000 profit. You can't calculate the taxes on your revenue and then deduct your expenses from your taxes. There are a few tax credits that work that way I believe, but that doesn't apply here.

As far as what you can write off, expenses would have to be related to your revenues. For example, I would think you could write off things like poker books and software. If your computer is used exclusively for poker, I think you could write off computer expenses...more likely you use it for other things as well, in which case I think you can write off the portion you use for poker. IE if it is used 50% for poker, you can write off 50% of the expenses.

Again, I'm NOT an expert on these matters. I'm fairly sure I have the basic facts correct, if not the exact details. Hopefully someone with more expertise can chime in.