View Single Post
  #4  
Old 11-30-2007, 12:50 PM
bav bav is offline
Senior Member
 
Join Date: Nov 2005
Location: Vegas
Posts: 2,857
Default Re: When does the tax man cometh? (USA)

NO! NONONO! You CANNOT net your wins against your losses unless you file as a professional poker player. You are technically required to list as income every dollar you earn from every winning session. You may also, if you itemize, list all the losing sessions up to the sum of your winning sessions as schedule A deductions. This will cost you a lot more on your taxes than netting wins vs losses (which is the obvious and logical way to do it), but that's the way the IRS claims you must do it. And legally there are no limits on the size of what you have to declare. If you have a $1 winning session, you're supposed to declare it.

Obviously this is SOOO incredibly unfair to a low-income student type who can't itemize (profitably), that I'm not going to bitch if you want to do something rational, if not technically permitted, like net wins vs losses. But I will be annoyed if you're trying to completely avoid paying taxes on gambling income, 'cause then I have to pay more in taxes to make up for you being a cheat.

If you get a W2G or 1099G, you darned well better declare that income on your 1040. They WILL notice if you don't and they WILL come tap you on the shoulder 6mo to 18mo later asking where that income is on your return and suggesting they think you owe them more. And they likely won't be too happy with "yeah, I had a $7000 tourney win in August, but overall for the year I lost money so I didn't include any gambling income".
Reply With Quote