Poll: Do you claim taxes on your winnings?

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I pay my taxes simply for peace of mind.

Who pays quarterly estimated taxes?

[Indiana]

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I pay my taxes simply for peace of mind.

Who pays quarterly estimated taxes?

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Im really bad at this. My penalty this year should be around 500 bucks prolly. Usually its not that high but I won a lot in poker this year.

Indy

[NapoleonDolemite]

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The thing that gets me with paying tax on poker, what if I lose 100K this year and revert back to being a lifetime loser at poker. Will I get my taxes back? Of course not. It's like you're betting with a bookie who takes your bets but never pays out when he loses.

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I understand your point, but comparing the US government to bookies is just plain unfair to bookies.

[drexah]

I am 19 years old and a college student. I have a savings account. I was at about 11k but now about 500 due to paying tuition. I also have a checking account with about $70 in it, althouh last summer i won about $9k playing online poker and have basically spent it all. I am very uneducated when it comes to this stuff but basically I am wondering if I really have anything to worry about since I don't even file my own taxes, i'm not even sure if my parents do. BTW I haven't had a job in about a year.

[Goldman]

My question is whether it’s more likely to cause trouble if I incorrectly claim my winnings or if I don’t claim them at all. I’ve been playing online for a little over a year and I view it is as a recreation and not as a source of income. I’ve had a small amount of success and I’m up about 2k, but I’ve never kept any kind of records. I can’t imagine how I could ever reconstruct the total of all my winning sessions and the total of all my losing sessions.

I’m really not worried about the tax liability and I would like to pay the taxes on it so that I don’t have to worry about it coming back on me down the road. However, my concern is that if I declare 2k of gambling income without any documentation it will put a flag on my filing and invite scrutiny/audit. Part of me feels like the IRS is always going to raise an eyebrow on poorly documented income, and by declare it I’ll be invited them to come make my life difficult because it’s improperly documented and declared.

On the other hand, I imagine they probably have so much difficulty collecting taxes on small gambling winnings that they are just happy if you report at all and won’t do anything to discourage the behavior. Plus, my understanding is that tax auditors are under pressure to bring in money and absolutely hate to mess around with miniscule amounts of tax liability. I’ve read in this thread and other places gambling income under a certain threshold goes completely beneath the radar.

Is there any requirement that documentation be submitted with the filing, or is it sufficient to enter the amount of gambling income on the form? Does anyone have a sense of when, if ever, the IRS will take interest in small amounts of gambling income?

[Moonshine]

while we're in the business of bumping this thread, anybody have a link to a good thread on paying taxes (ie not this one)?

the search function is useless

[5thStreetHog]

[ QUOTE ]
while we're in the business of bumping this thread, anybody have a link to a good thread on paying taxes (ie not this one)?

the search function is useless

[/ QUOTE ] try this

[fnord_too]

Sir Moonshine,

Get an accountant to do your taxes. I think I pay $350 for my CPA to prepare my taxes.

Just a few points (I am amazed at how [censored] clueless a lot of people are):

There are two very distict branches in reducing taxes: Tax Avoidance and Tax Evasion. The former is no a crime, and is often even totally legit and legal, but we will concern ourselfs with avoidance that is not up to code. The latter is a felony. If you report all your income, you are not evading. You may make some outlandish deductions and claims, which may get caught and you may have to pony up what you owe in the best case and what you owe + penalties and interest in the worst. If you don't report your income, and you get caught, you are looking at much more unpleasant possibilities.

Just get an accountant and follow their advice. They will do what they can to help minimize the tax you pay, and may even be aggressive to the point where the IRS disallows some of the stuff (and you have to pay the difference), but you will have your ass covered AND have confidence that you paid about the least for what you earned.

Also, when they make suggestions like putting money in an IRA, do that if you can afford it. It never ceases to amaze me how financially blind a lot of good poker players are.

[Albert Moulton]

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i think its morally wrong to pay federal taxes since ~50% goes to weapons.

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For the 7 years I was in the army, I guess I should have bought my own weapons. Now that I think about it, as an all volunteer Army, it really ought to be BYOW (bring your own weapons) anyway. Moreover, individual weapons purchases should be tax deductable, or at least come out of pretax earnings.

Finally, since everyone should be armed with tax-deductable weaponry, we should replace our standing armed forces with mandatory weekend militia drills for the common defense, and we should only get activated to full time in the event of an actual land invasion. Cruise ships, cargo ships, and airlines should arm themselves, too, since we shouldn't be buying those expensive warplanes planes, missiles and ships.

I am now convinced that a United States with a universal, unprofessional militia with no force projection capabilities would make the world a much safer, and more peaceful place. Plus, we'd pay less taxes.


Speaking of taxes, I make less than 10K playing poker, but I always report everything I won to the best of my abilitiy. It's all pretty small potatoes, but I pay because I think its the right thing to do.

[Psydoc]

Bumping for the new year, with a couple interesting ideas from the thread quoted below:

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Netting wins and losses = illegal and subject to audit. I don't really care, but there are better ways to fudge your numbers than doing that.

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It's not that cut and dried - a lot depends on your situation. Read the rules for the various categories. For me, netting as hobby income was the most apropos choice available. No other category fit as well.

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I just use my bank ledger as a record. A deposit = a loss and a cashout a win. I declare gambling winnings hope this keeps working.

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In the alternative, does anyone have easy instructions for getting daily win/losses out of your postgres db?