Quote:
Originally Posted by Alizona
I've pretty much spent the past 3+ years twiddling my thumbs and cursing our supposed "land of the free" government under my breath.
And I've spent the past 3+ years trying to figure out... WHY? Why can the entire rest of the world play online poker, but we "land of the free" Americans CAN'T?
And I've spent the past 3+ years pondering the IRS and poker... how interesting it is that literally ALL of the money put into the "tournament pot" has already been taxed as income by the IRS... and when the tournament is over and the "pot" money has been divvied up amongst the final table-ists, the IRS steps in yet again to tax that already-taxed money AGAIN.
So on the one hand, I'm upset about it all. And on the other hand, I'm realizing just how rigged the game really is... and I don't mean via RNG random number generators. Nor do I mean just the game of poker. Maybe it has been a good thing, to take three years to step back and ponder what it all means.
I don't think that our tax system is good. Taxes are too high, and some of the rules are hard to understand.
That said, I don't think that the tax system is unfair in the way that you describe. The general concept is that you pay a percentage based on your income. It has nothing to do with how money is moved around, or tournament pots, or who had that money before you when it was already taxed.
The concept is pretty simple. Whether I make 50K playing poker, winning the national scrabble championship or building houses, it's still 50K in income and the tax rate is the same.*
The IRS taxes
income, not tournament pots. If a person makes money, they pay income tax. If a business makes money, it pays income tax. It doesn't matter whether that business is Joe's Plumbing or my local charity poker room.
If I make 50K playing poker and my wife makes 50K working for a hospital, it still adds up to 100K in income.
As complicated as some of the rules are (especially for poker players**), the concept is pretty straightforward.
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*There will be some differences between occupations, for example, what business expenses are deductible, but the principle is the same.
**Amateur and professional poker players operate under different IRS rules.
Last edited by Poker Clif; 07-18-2014 at 12:22 PM.
Reason: spelling