Some US tax questions
I just started playing poker online again for the first time since I came over to the US (I'm now classed as a resident alien for tax purposes). I've been doing some searching around and as far as I can gather it works like this:
Declare each winning "session" as "other income".
Declare each losing "session" as an itemized deduction.
Is this correct?
I'm a grad student, so my itemized deductions are virtually zero and excluding poker I'm far better off taking the standard deduction.
Including poker, it's going to depend what a "session" is. The more hands in a session, the more likely I'll be up overall and so the less I lose out on by not itemizing deductions. Typically I multitable 4-6 tables for 1-2 hours a day. Is each table a session (dear god I hope not!)? Is each day a session? Could I stretch it out further than one day?
Also, since this is the first I've heard of this ridiculous session method for reporting, I haven't been keeping suitable records. I've been using pokertracker this month, but prior to that I have approx 200 STTs and about 2000 cash hands which I couldn't possibly break down by session, though I do know exactly how much net profit they yielded. What do I do about that?
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