This should end all of the false claims about paying US taxes on poker

[djoyce003]

There's a thing called the alternative minimum tax that can sometimes cause you to lose some of your income tax deductions particularly in cases where your total deductions are very large. Also, if you don't itemize other areas, you can lose some deductions in the example given. Such as:

You are single, and don't own your own home. Thus you would normally take the standard deduction on your income taxes (lets say it's 8K for this example). Now you have a regular job but you play poker on the side. You also "win" 100K in poker, and "lose" 80k for a net win of 20k. However, to get credit for the 80K in losses you have to itemize deductions. You've now lost the 8k standard deduction you would have gotten. Say at your job you made 50k. Now you have 150k in income, and 80k in standard deductions or 70k in taxable income. If you could net, you'd have 70k in income, less 8 for deductions or 62k. Now you've lost some. This is fairly moot if you own a home or could otherwise itemize deductions without the gambling losses