^ interesting, thx for the info

I'm guessing the AI would determine that almost every poker-related case is non-taxable (based on the real world data it would be basing its predictions on). In any case, it's very cool to see you at the forefront of innovation in your industry, Mr. Alarie. Good luck with the venture, and thanks for keeping us updated.

Thanks for the kind words. In back testing real cases, the AI correctly predicts the vast majority correctly, including where taxpayers are found to be taxable.

The new functionality is expected to go live on March 31.

If anyone's accountant or lawyer is interested, give them this link and they can request a trial account:

http://gettaxnetpro.com/tax-foresight

Hi. Im hoping for some insight,

1. Does every canadian online poker player who grinds full time declare an income of zero and claim that they were unemployed year after year?

2. Say they are successful and has a ton of withdrawals to their bank account and total in the range of high 5-6 figures every year, they still declare zero? (won't that cause problems if you're asked how you pay for your rent/car/food etc.)

3. or instead of zero do you claim the minimum amount ($11,474) even though you clearly have way more deposits to your bank account?

4. Say you win mid six figures to a million from a spin and go or a tournament and you withdrawal that to your bank account. For that year you still declare an amount of zero or.. ? (because its considered a windfall)

Thank you.

IANAL & TINLA

Nobody knows the answer to that question. Undoubtedly some grinders do that. Some may not file a return. Some may declare income from other sources (interest, dividends, capital gains, support payments...). Some may actually declare business income from poker.

If you are not in the business of poker - if you are not a professional player - then as long as you can show how you came by the money if you are audited, you will probably be OK. A problem could arise if the CRA didn't believe your true evidence.or if, on review of the evidence, they decided it supported a reasonable conclusion that your net poker winnings were income from a source which was a business in poker.

I think this would be unwise. If you are making business income from poker, lying about the amount you make would be an offence. Whether you have to declare anything rests on a question of fact. Are your winnings windfalls or are they business income? The amount you have to declare is either 0 or the net business income (net winnings less expenses).

You do not have to declare windfalls. It may be possible for a tournament win to be windfall, but your cash game net winnings to be business income.

It has been repeatedly, and IMO incorrectly, claimed in this thread that the Radonjic case established that poker winnings were not taxable in Canada. The Radonjic case didn't even address that question. Rather it dealt with the narrow issue of whether the Minister of Revenue reached a reasonable decision when Radonjic's request for an adjustment (to remove previously declared poker winnings from his income in past years) was denied. The learned judge ruled that the decision was not within the range of reasonable decisions, given the evidence and argument put before the Minister. He also implied that it was unlikely that the Tax Court would have found that Radonjic's net poker winnings were business income had the same evidence and arguments been presented to it. There was no implication that Radonjic would not be found to have business income if other evidence and arguments had been presented, and there was no direct suggestion that business income from poker winnings was not taxable.

Since that case, an unknown number of other taxpayers have received adjustments based on applications similar to Radonjic's request for an adjustment.

It would seem to be uncontested law that net poker winnings that are business income are still taxable. The question is where to draw the line between windfall and business income. CRA has to date been unsuccessful in their few attempts in court to show that a person claiming that their poker winnings did not constitute income from a gambling business was wrong. They have recently been unsuccessful in similar cases involving other forms of gambling. The problem seems to be that the court has never been presented with true evidence that clearly approached the high bar of proving the gambling activity being that of a business, and therefore the court has not had to pronounce clearly on where that bar lies. As a result of this legal situation, and the limited investigative and enforcement resources of the CRA, some people suggest that a person who doesn't declare net gambling proceeds as business income stands a high chance of having their tax return being assessed as claimed, or at worst, passing a review or audit.

I am going to be filing some jackpots and I had a quick question. Jackpot was from 2017 so in 2018 will mail them my 1042-S. Am I able to use win/loss statements from 2016 to get all the tax back or do they need to be from same calendar year as the jackpot. Also if the casino put my birthday as 2015 instead of 1983 will Irs reject this ?


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I assume you mean you won the jackpot in the U.S., and will be filing an IRS Form 1040NR U.S. Nonresident Alien Income Tax Return to get a refund of the tax withheld as shown on the Form 1042-S that the casino filed with the IRS.

No, you cannot carry over gambling losses from 2016 to your 2017 Form 1040NR.

Don't know if the IRS will reject your filing based on the birthday reported by the casino on the Form 1042-S. You can just attach an explanation to the tax return to explain.

Thanks very much


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Thanks so much. If I have 1800 to collect is it dollar for dollar and I need to show 1800 in loses in a win/loss statement to get it all back?


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You might be able to get it all back if you are a Canadian citizen. Read this thread and the other threads referenced in this thread.

If you are sending in the W7 and 1040 NR do you need to apply for that PTIN if you are doing your own return?

Let me google that for you.

Yes i did that just not clear on PTIN if its required if you file your own.

I assume you mean ITIN:

https://www.irs.gov/instructions/i10...2.html#d0e1624

No the PTIN is some new thing it's very vague https://www.irs.gov/tax-professional...turn-preparers


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That's just for paid preparers:

Thanks I guess it's on every form so didn't want to miss it.


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Not sure where I should be posting this, but I think this seems a good sub-section as any. I want some variance-free income on the side, and I do travel a lot for years at a time and plan to play poker as my main source of income when I do travel. (I'm 23) Currently grinding 1/3 and will be taking shots at 2/5 when I have a 30k roll.

I wanted to know a decent phone with a camera that can record with the screen off for 10-15 hour sessions with good quality. The phone would ONLY be used for filming and nothing else.

I also was wondering if I'm recording the +/- of every single session I play, how does that work when I need to pay taxes? AFAIK you don't have to pay taxes for gambling/poker unless it's your main source of income, but having a vlog playing poker 40+ hours a week kinda infers that I play for a living. (Currently a citizen/living in Canada) but plan on travelling all over aswell.

Edit: Nevermind. Canada!

Wow. Just wow.

In answer to your question, I do not know anything about phones or cameras. You might try asking some poker vloggers directly by commenting on their YouTube videos. I've found them to be very responsive to honest inquiries.

Or you might take a look at this thread in the Las Vegas Lifestyle subforum: http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/10...ounts-1637166/.

However, I fear you may be underestimating how long it will take you to edit and post a vlog. For every minute of video, assume 30-60 minutes of editing work, maybe more than that when you're first learning the software and figuring out how to add commentary, music, and graphics to your raw footage.

I also think you may be vastly underestimating how difficult it will be to attract subscribers to your vlog. There's a lot of competition out there currently. What are you going to do to distinguish yourself from the Trooper, Andrew Neeme, Jeff Boski, Jake Cody, et al.? You have to be either a first-rate player and analyzer of hands, or a uniquely entertaining personality in some way.

Yes, Andrew Neeme has 56K subscribers, but thepokermonk has 931. Never heard of him? He's posted 27 videos over the past 6 months.

I also think you may be overestimating how much vloggers make from vlogging. It may be pennies—pennies for hours of work. Yes, some of the more successful ones are starting to get sponsors, but we're talking about a handful of vloggers out of hundreds.

Moreover, the idea that someone from the IRS is watching the Trooper's vlogs and keeping track of his daily wins and losses is just ludicrous. (The idea that someone from the IRS is watching thepokermonk's vlogs is beyond ludicrous.) The world simply doesn't work that way.

Finally, I am not a tax expert (and know nothing about Canadian tax laws), but in the US the legal requirements are quite different from what you assume they are. This is from https://www.irs.gov/taxtopics/tc419.html:

The following rules apply to casual gamblers who aren't in the trade or business of gambling. Gambling winnings are fully taxable and you must report the income on your tax return. Gambling income includes but isn't limited to winnings from lotteries, raffles, horse races, and casinos. It includes cash winnings and the fair market value of prizes, such as cars and trips. For additional information, refer to Publication 525, Taxable and Nontaxable Income, or review How Do I Claim My Gambling Winnings and/or Losses?

I've always wanted to have a Vlog while I travel, and being huge into fitness, plus travelling all over the world is a very unique twist on a poker vlog IMO. Even $100 per vid throw 2 out a week if I get good at editing/making them would make it worthwhile for me further down the road.

For Canadian taxes, I've heard such mixed things. People saying flat out you don't have to pay taxes, people say if they can prove it's your main source of income then you have to pay taxes, or you need to win 3/5 years and then you pay taxes so I have no idea what the actual ruling is, and I don't want to get audited again.

The route I took was MUCH harder for me to win than to win in Tax Court. That was a mistake on my part to go to Federal Court. To be clear: in Tax Court, the CRA has to prove poker winnings are taxable. In Federal Court, the CRA only has to prove their conclusion that I was taxable was REASONABLE - not that it was CORRECT. A decision can be reasonable and incorrect. This is a WAY lower bar. I hope this is self-evident. The CRA couldn't even PROVE their decision was REASONABLE, let alone CORRECT!


If you a business, you will have to pay taxes on your poker winnings, but you can never hit that bar ever, because then players could game the system lose money and claim expenses. If you don't believe this, imagine two players playing heads-up - one "acts like a business" the other as a recreational player. The rec player wins and doesn't pay taxes, the business loses and claims losses.

There are plenty of clues and tips left by J. Russell in my judgment where he says how things would go in Tax Court, without him explicitly saying it.

Poker winnings are not taxable by anyone who's not like Daniel Negreanu, playing on a reputation, sponsored, etc.

On the facts of your case, proving that the Minister was unreasonable was an easy case to make. On the same facts, winning in tax court would have been even easier. The problem is, you have no way of knowing that additional facts would nor have been introduced if you had taken the case to Tax Court. Given your case was a Judicial Review of a Ministerial decision, there was no opportunity for additional facts to be introduced. Therefore, going to Judicial Review was not an error. It was the safer course.

And if they are ever going to win such a case, they need to do a better job using the information available to build their case. I think that it is quite possible for the CRA to build a case against you given all you have said, but they haven't shown that their legal team has the know-how to do it. So while it is legally possible for them to win, it may not be practically possible.

While it is logical that proving a decision is correct is a higher bar than proving it is reasonable, the facts of your case were such that the bar of correctness was not set much higher. Yours is one of the clearest cases for overturning on judicial review I have ever seen. I speak as somebody who used to be in a position of making decisions that could be subject to judicial review, and also as somebody who was a plaintiff for judicial review of a rather more significant government decision.

I don't find your argument persuasive. It is equivalent to saying the CRA will never find that a consultant working out of their home is operating a business, because if they did, everyone would write off rent, property taxes, utilities, maintenance, etc. In fact, the CRA has been quite successful in denying business status to people not actually opererating businesses, including poker players.

Having read the judgement, I'd have to say the honourable judge had a few misconceptions that proper evidence might have eliminated. Those misconception did not affect the correctness of his ruling, but may go to the value of his obiter dicta.

That statement is legally incorrect. However it may be an accurate reflection of the current practical state of affairs.

So learn to judge the source.
Legally, that is sometimes incorrect.
That's often incorrect too.
Like the previous statement, this a contributing consideration, not the salient fact.
The question of whether you aere legally required to pay taxes on net poker winnings comes down to a single matter of fact: are the winnings a windfall, or are they income from a (poker business) source.

Whether your poker winnings are your main source of income, and whether you have been winning for multiple years are pieces of evidence that go towards the decision on the question of fact. They are not the only pieces.

For example, say the only poker you play is an annual tournament that is held on Fathers's Day weekend, and that in the past two years you won first place once and second place the other time. In both cases the prize was greater than your annual income from your minimum wage job. So poker has been your main source of income for a couple years, and you have been profitable for a couple of years. Yet there is no way that you would be found to have had income from a poker business. You luckboxed your way to some prize money. That's a windfall. There's nothing else that indicates you were operating a poker business. You don't play regularly. There is no reason to say you had a reasonable expectation of profit when you entered those tournaments. You don't seem to to do anything to maximize your advantage, nor have you be shown to have specialized knowledge.

Meanwhile somebody who makes most of his income operating a landscaping business, bur who also regularly plays poker 20 hours per week and is a fairly consistent winner over multiple years, may indeed be found to be operating a poker business, even though his poker income is not his main source of income. The fact that he has been a fairly consistent winner for several years is not sufficient to prove he has a poker business. Other facts are required, such as an organized approach, special knowledge, and attempts to maximize outcomes.

The issue of whether your net poker winnings are taxable rests on the question of whether you were operating a poker business. The answer to that question depends on the collection of all relevant facts.

Then there is the separate question of whether CRA can prove you are running a poker business. It may be the fact that you are, but if you do not voluntarily report such income, it may be beyond CRA's ability to prove it is a fact, even though it is one. That doesn't mean you don't "have to" pay taxes, it just means you might get away with not paying taxes.

Those two statements are contradictory.