Taxes - Need help.

[Teph]

Hey everyone, I am a member of the "What the hell do I do, and what consequences would/should I honestly expect from tax issues club"

I won't go into a long story about how I got into the game or how its changed my life. It pays my bills, and that is all I really care/worry about. I am also starting to have a savings and I love what I do. Basically, I am a large percentage of the younger posters from SSNL/MSNL.

In my life, I have never really had to worry about anything regarding money. I was never very well off financially, instead I simply learned to deal with what I got. I would rarely spend any money and just save it. I only had one job for under a year and made an incredible 6.75/hr. renting movies to old people that complained about DVD's not fitting into VCR's. Thats when I started playing poker, when I was 17. I am by no means a multi-tabling fanatic, and I rarely even play to be honest. I do make much more than I ever could have at a bum job like that though.

This has lead me to never "getting around" to filing taxes. I have read countless posts that describe how stupid this actually is, and how much I may be lubing my self up for IRS penetration. To say the least, I have grown very concerned. I never really made a lot of money playing poker. I made a couple thousand every few months as more of a hobby, but over the last year I have gotten serious about the game moved up and made a decent amount of money. I have left nearly all of the funds (minus 3-4k) in site/neteller accounts simply because I do not know what to do.

If I were to file for the next year, would that make me more susceptible to being audited for my previous account history? What are the regulations on audits, I thought that they could go back 7 years through your paper trail, but am I wrong? What kind of fines/legal issues would I be looking at for my prior "evasion" (or lack of knowledge/responsibilty)? What measures do the semi-pro/pro regulars here that make a smallish amount do? Finally, how concerned should I honestly be?


Teph

Mods - If this needs to be moved, or you think it should be, feel free, there were many options as to which forum was most appropriate. I chose SSNL because although I play mid-stakes, I feel my yearly income is that of a SSNL player due to my lack of playing time