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Old 10-09-2007, 02:04 PM
verneer verneer is offline
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Default Taxes and Investing

(I hope I'm posting this to the right forum. I tried to find one dealing with taxes/legal issues but couldn't find it. Please move it and educate me if necessary.)

If FTP sends me a check, and I cash it for whatever purpose, is that that income? What if I use it to play in Vegas? When does my "roll" become income? When I spend it on non-poker related things?

So ... if I take a couple grand out and invest it, does it become income as soon as I invest it?
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Old 10-09-2007, 02:12 PM
skindog skindog is offline
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Default Re: Taxes and Investing

This is what I remember from reading certain posts on these forums, so if that information was inaccurate this whole post may be inaccurate - I apologize in advance

It becomes income the instant you have control over it... so the second you win a hand online, you have to report it. But it's also not that simple - US Tax law is fun and fair in that if poker is not your occupation, you have to pay taxes on your gross winnings, but you can't deduct gambling losses.

In my case, as a marginally winning player, that means I would be paying more taxes than I have total earnings. The way I'm going to do it is just report gains instead of this retarded method, and if the IRS comes barking, they can go [censored] themselves. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]
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Old 10-09-2007, 02:41 PM
krishan krishan is offline
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Default Re: Taxes and Investing

Withdrawing money to a bank account doesn't have any effect on taxes. Neither does taking cash and using it as a bankroll in Vegas. Taxes are determined by the net amount you win if a pro and gross amount you win - deducted losses if you are not. There is a lot of wiggle room but none that says you don't have to declare until you remove your money from a poker site.

Krishan
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Old 10-09-2007, 05:26 PM
jively jively is offline
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Default Re: Taxes and Investing

[ QUOTE ]
Withdrawing money to a bank account doesn't have any effect on taxes. Neither does taking cash and using it as a bankroll in Vegas. Taxes are determined by the net amount you win if a pro and gross amount you win - deducted losses if you are not. There is a lot of wiggle room but none that says you don't have to declare until you remove your money from a poker site.

[/ QUOTE ]
This is correct. There are frequent posts about this in the Legislation forum.

As you are probably not a professional poker player, you have to break down each of your gambling "sessions" into winning sessions and losing sessions. You add up all of the winning sessions and list that as income on the first page of form 1040, and add up all of the losing sessions and list that as an itemized deduction on Schedule A.

Because of this quirky nature, you may owe taxes even if you are a breakeven or losing player. [img]/images/graemlins/frown.gif[/img]

For online sessions, you can get really accurate data from Pokertracker if you use that. What is a "session" is another issue. If you are logging in, and playing one table of the same game for x hours, that is a session. If your table breaks and you move quickly to another table, that is still the same session. If later in the same day you log in again, the IRS will probably consider that another session.

If you are multitabling the same game, you should be able to combine those into one session. If you are playing different games, or cash and tournaments at the same time, you probably need to break those down into separate sessions.

-Tom
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