You just have to give some proof that you're actually staying in an other country or a proof of the bank.
I already e-mailed them and they said you just have to show like your house contract/rent contract or something similar...

I added the 'or regular'

Are you now starting to see how unfair it is to tax pokerplayers but not people who win the lotto or people that win with a scratch-off ticket?
I was the one not thinking clearly wasn't I?

Anyone (below or above 21 years old) of the people who are always talking about how much k they have ready to fight this part of the law yet?

Steve, why not allow players to buy high BI tournaments with FPP's, then unreg and convert this to T$? Or even convert FPP's to T$ immediatly? I guess it's not quite different to play the tournaments we like vs the ones PS wants us to play legislation-wise?

At least this would solve a big problem for MTT and SNG players...Didn't think of something adapted for CG yet though

Not that I feel concerned anymore, if the reg tax is applied combined with higher rake I doubt I ever play a single game online again...I will probably contact a fiscalist/tax lawyer if I think this could help. No idea how much they charge though, but probably not much in comparison with what we all lose in case we have to stop playing anyway...

We are starting to see the discrimination.

'Inderdaad weer een tyisch Belgische aanpak.
Het lijk me zelfs zo dat het juridisch aanvechtbaar is omdat het onderscheid tussen "occasioneel" en "regelmatig" niet bij wet vastgelegd is.
Dat zou op dit moment het gelijkheidsbeginsel wel eens kunnen schenden.'

'Er staat in de Belgische wetgeving ook ergens dat de winsten uit kansspelen belastingvrij zijn. Dat' is dus in tegenstrijd met wat in de hoger vernoemde quote gezegd wordt.'

The people on pokerstrategy see the discrimination and how it is now legally correct and could be fought in court.

But my thinking is probably flawed é Gillius?

You really annoy me dude...

I think this rule is bollocks too, but I just don't sit around and only whine about it.
Taxing professional players would make a lot of sense, taxing only regular players doesn't make any sense, and really strikes with a lot of things happening and a lot of laws.

I've never seen anyone talk about giving money to fight stuff like this. You clearly have, so you should contact those people, and let them put their money where their mouth is when the final law is in effect.

But actually doing something useful isn't really anything you plan on doing I suppose.

I just want to add about taxes that nothing has changed, there is no new law that has been passed on the subject.

I took advice from a fiscalist/ tax professional a few year ago and he basically told me the same thing: winnings are not to be taxed except if you're a pro/ regular but there is no definition of what is a regular so it's up to the fiscal administration to prove it.

I don't know if there is any belgian pro player who has paid taxes on his winning but I don't think there is any.

Because it was illegal obv. No one pays taxes on their bank robbery either, while in theory they should.
Now that it becomes legal everything will be monitored, so they're actually going to have to dodge taxes actively or pay them.

That's not true it was not illegal, just unregulated. Maybe now that poker will have more exposure in Belgium they will look at it more closely.

This has been circulating for a long time, but I've no one can ever show me the quote of the law to prove this.

I've talked to a financial expert a couple of times regarding poker & taxes. The Belgian law does say "casinospelen worden niet belast onder 'diverse inkomsten'".

http://www.law.kuleuven.be/jura/art/42n3/verduyckt.html

It's an exception wrt 'Diverse inkomsten'. There afaik no such exception wrt 'Beroepsinkomsten'. Which means pro's have to pay taxes in theory. And no I'm not happy about that either, but I tried to inform myself instead of just hoping the rumours i like to believe are true.

xoxo

But what constitutes a 'pro', i.e. how is the distinction made between having to file your winnings under 'beroepsinkomsten' and having to file them under 'diverse inkomsten' (which means NOT having to file them, given the exception mentioned in the above post)?

The mention of 'regular' player in the article above makes the matter even more obscure imo.

I think the only fair thing would be to equal it to some sort of rake/year requirement. Problem with that is that it will have really weird consequences (like imagine it being 200k VPPs and you reach 200k usually, it would probably be optimal to not go for the 200k VPP VIP reward...)

Yeah something like that would make sense. Alternative is to only tax it if poker is your only / most important source of income. In all other cases, filing under 'diverse inkomsten' makes sense imo.

But I do think that if we would be taxed on our winnings, lossed should be deductible and even rake paid. After all, the definition of 'beroepsuitgaven' is 'expenses you make to be able to execute your profession' or something like that, and rake certainly qualifies imo.
But then what do you do with rakeback/vpps, the fact that in a cash game every pot you win is already 'post-rake', ...

Finding an elegant way to solve the tax issue is not an easy feat imo.

The solution should be quite easy: if u work a fulltime non-poker job and play poker in the evening an weekends/vacations to supplement ur income, it should be reported under "diverse inkomsten" and hence not taxed as the gaming commission views poker as gambling and hence a casinogame.

If poker is ur sole source of income, it should be reported under "beroepsinkomsten" and hence taxed at the regular rate.

what about if you got a part time job for 3 days a week, 4 hours a day, then played poker the rest of the time and made more money?

or what if you had a full time job earning 40k a year which you didnt want to leave because you enjoy it but you 60k a year playing poker? or you earn 40k a year but one year win the sunday milly and earn 200k from poker when you might only earn 10k normally?

any definition of pro/regular is going to be very arbitrary and discriminatory is just the point im trying to make