Taxes question - what is the definition of a session? - Page 2

iceman5 · #11 01-25-2006, 05:55 PM

Youre crazy. Theyre going to say I owe $xx amount based on what? They have to prove I made $xx amount to say I owe $xx amount.

This is the USA, not China. They cant just say I made $50K and that I owe $10K without having reocrds to back it up. If they can show I deposited $20K into my account, they'll never get to $50K. No way, no how.

They cant just make up a number. Get a grip.

icepick · #12 01-25-2006, 06:01 PM

[ QUOTE ]
They cant just make up a number. Get a grip.

[/ QUOTE ]

The burden of proof is on you, not the IRS.

cardcounter0 · #13 01-25-2006, 06:02 PM

[ QUOTE ]
They have to prove I made $xx amount to say I owe $xx amount.

[/ QUOTE ]

Obviously you don't have the slightest idea what you are talking about. The IRS doesn't have to prove anything.

I will repeat this for you: THE IRS DOESN'T HAVE TO PROVE ANYTHING. The burden of proof is on you to prove that they are wrong.

And the $XX amount the IRS will claim you owe will be as large as possible. So whatever amount you can 'prove' and chop off, will still leave a big $X that they can collect.

Welcome to America.

iceman5 · #14 01-25-2006, 06:16 PM

You need to reread the Tax reform law that Bush passed a few years ago.

You are both wrong.

According to you, the IRS can audit my mother right now and say she owes $1 million dollars from poker last year. She would have to prove shes never played a hand. Wake up.

RobDoral · #15 01-25-2006, 06:47 PM

I wonder if the IRS is just going to take our word for it rather than waste hundreds of man hours trying to prove otherwise? What I claim in winnings is going to match my bank records and my neteller history. I started with a small amount of money a couple of years ago but work with a permanent bankroll now so I've never claimed any losses. I might move a big chunk of money from my bank account only to put it right back for the purposes of bonus chasing but I'll be damned if I'm going to play the itemizing game with that sort of transaction (though I'll report the bonus as income of course).

Are they really going to want to pour through hundreds or thousands of pages of poker tracker hand logs (if we even have them) to figure out whether you've slightly under or over paid them? It's not worth the man hours spent to collect the money and the people who voluntarly and honestly (to the best of their ability) report their winnings shouldn't be their top priorty imo.

I intend to report my poker winnings as accurately as possible but if they want to try to get my play history from the dozens of sites I've played to prove I made a small error (most likely OVER paid them) I say let them. Does it bring a smile to anyone else's face the thought of an IRS auditor trying to get help from a typical poker CS agent?

[edit] reading the posts it looks like the burder is on us to prove what we did or didn't win but the IRS can't pull numbers from thin air. They have no idea how much I play daily, what stakes I play at, or anything else so they must rely on something reasonable. Just because they MIGHT have the power to harass us doesn't mean they have that inclination or that Congress will tolerate it. The IRS isn't exactly the darling of the federal government.

Niediam · #16 01-25-2006, 06:54 PM

How are you playing the game continuously if you are using the 'one day = session' method? [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

iceman5 · #17 01-25-2006, 06:57 PM

I tend to agree with you Rob. I will report my winnings as accurately as I can and Im not worried at all like alot of other people.

My guess is that 95% of players dont report anything. The IRS isnt going after people who make a good faith effort to report what they think they owe.

Also, I really doubt the IRS would get any cooperation whatsoever from any poker site even if they tried. Neteller has said they will cooperate, but I doubt the poker sites will. If they do, then so be it. Like I said, Im doing the best I can anyway. Im not trying to cheat.

bigalt · #18 01-25-2006, 06:59 PM

Or they might just say that you didn't report your $1.5M income from crack sales last year.

The most they're likely to hit you for is tax on the standard deduction which you shouldn't have taken if deducting your losses.

They do get their figures from somewhere. The ridiculously large $X they gave me for my taxes from a few years ago came from my stock sales assuming a 0 cost basis, since I just tried to supply the net figure. However, they got that number because there was a record of my stock sales. If they could find a list of your winning sessions they'd probably do the same thing, but they can't.

Niediam · #19 01-25-2006, 07:10 PM

They don't ask Awesomepoker.net for anything. They ask you to get whatever information they want from AwesomePoker.

iceman5 · #20 01-25-2006, 07:27 PM

Call Party and ask for records of ALL of your hands last year and see what they tell you. When they stop laughing, they will politely say "No".

The IRS doesnt get a record of your purchase price on stock sales. They only get a record of the sales price (which makes no sense at all to me).

Did you not report to them what you paid for the stock? You can make up whatever number you want as long as the stock sold for that price sometime during the day that you report as the purchase date. Why did they even question your stock sale? Did you not report the dates of purchase and sale...and the purchase and sales price?