I hadnt thought of it until a dealer mentioned it, but is it true?

So is the first of the month.

I was on a big heater last year this time and now again, coincidence?

What correlation does you being on a heater have to the games being softer?

Good theory. Lots of people will use their tax refunds on entertainment with gambling being a part of that so I'm sure there is some amount of easy money flowing into the game this time of year, but it will be spread out over several months as not everyone receives their refund at the same time and I doubt it is enough to have a noticeable impact on any specific locale. My guess would be that if you are grinding everyday from February - May you will get a few extra fish but it won't impact your hourly much.

100% the best time to play ... Tax season and no football for them to 'stress' over.

Early in the month is good too .. and the last couple of days when someone is trying to pay rent after blowing the rest of the month up at the BJ table. GL

Tax refund season is one of the busiest times in a poker room.

well it stands to reason that since paydays in general are better than tax season would be too. i've never really noticed it (or more accurately paid attention to it) in the past but March - May is usually some of my best time in a given year looking back.

If you are near military base... 1st and 15th is twice a month vs once a year tax time...

It must be nice to have received refunds already. I haven't even received all the documents yet for me to file.

a tax refund? what's a tax refund? I am one of the unlucky ones that has to pay on april 15th : (:::::

I just looked over my records and for the past 4 years my biggest months were September and January...

Tax season in spring?

In my country (Croatia), yearly tax payments/refunds for previous year aren't processed until August.

In the U.S.A., the tax filing deadline for most individuals is April 15th, although you can get an automatic four-month extension to August 15th if you need it. (But you still have to estimate and pay any taxes you may owe by the original April 15th deadline.)

More often than not I need to file for an extension because I don't receive all of my tax documents in a timely fashion (or I receive amended documents after April 15th). If I file before waiting for the amended documents, then I have to file an amended tax return, so it's usually easier to just file for the extension and wait until May or so to do my taxes.

do you do your own taxes? might be helpful to take it somewhere one year to see if they can help at all (just not H&R block or any of those big ones, find a local guy, he'll charge less and know more.)

I think he was being sarcastic. If not, he's mistaken.

Ideally, you want to OWE money when filing, because it means you got to hold on to your money throughout the year.

It's actually so beneficial to owe money that the IRS has penalties in place to prevent you from not prepaying. If you don't have money withheld, you have to file quarterly, and if you don't have some percentage of your eventual tax bill prepaid, you get hit with a punitive penalty. There are some exceptions if you prepay enough for your previous tax bill but end up making more money than expected, and I'm sure others, but bottom line is that Uncle Sam wants his. And while it makes people feel better to get a big check on April 16, the truth is that those people just loaned the IRS a bunch of money interest-free.

no, I don't have any withholding because I'm "self employed". so I have to pay pay pay.

You bring up a good point though, when you don't pay enough taxes on time you get charged high interest and penalties, but when you overpay at the end of the year and don't receive your refund until May 15th, you can't charge the IRS any interest or penalties.

Ok. So you probably pay estimates. Yeah that's fun. Are you paying everything through self employment tax or did you set up an S Corp where you can take a small salary and flow the profit from the S corp and save a bunch on the SE Tax?

Right, people who get tax refunds are actually giving the government an interest free loan.

And tax season is usually extra busy in my regular room.


--klez

That argument had some validity when banks were paying interest rates of 5%, 10%, or even 15%. However, it's downright laughable now that banks pay .01%.

Agreed! Refund? What's that? My wife and I make too much money for any refund.

Stock market.

YMMV


--klez

I heard recently about other countries with negative interest rates. In other words they chsrge people for holding their money.

I'm sure the US will follow

http://www.bloombergview.com/quickta...interest-rates

Many people don't have the discipline to save $100-200 per month on their own, so I don't discourage the forced saving aspect of it in that regard. I agree it is not the optimal way to run one's finances, but there are many people out there who would never be able to save it to begin with.

on the other hand if more people were forced to write a check quarterly or annually to uncle sam instead of having their income tax deducted off their paycheck they might be more inclined to question the merits of the confiscatory tax rates they suffer under.

Your 'refund' has nothing to do with the amount of money the two of you earn.

Whether the two of you have gross earnings <$50K or >$2M...... the refund (or taxes owed) amount is not dependent on the actual gross.