Hi there!

I'm thinking of moving to Germany but before I'd like to know what's the current situation there with taxes of online poker.

What's the deal if like I play on PS and moving my money out to skrill and never elsewhere (like a bank account). Do anybody cares, can this hurt me in any way?

Looking from answers from ppl who live in Germany and got experience about it.

Thank you very much!

The situation is still not totally clear, but right now it looks like professional poker players in Germany are supposed to be treated the same as other self-employed people, which means having to pay taxes on their winnings.

It doesn't matter if anyone cared or not or if anything bad could happen, if you have to pay taxes, you have to pay taxes. No matter if you are a poker player or run a grocery store. This forum is not for discussing tax evasion.

If you move to Germany, speak to a tax attorney.

i'm not expert, but i want to add something madlex had said. the biggest problem is, that the state not even recognize it as 'skilled gaming' or a proper job.

there was a huge case around a former player (ftp sponsored) and basically they used hendon mob to determine his winnings. even he had plenty of documentation about paying hotel bills, travel expenses and of course tournament buy-ins.

long story short. while madlex is correct, that you have to pay taxes, they not really care about poker as a business, b/c "FY it's gambling".

while there are some guys, who still live in Germany and are known (and pay taxes), most moved to Austria.

of course, there are some folks, who fly under radar (Skrill, no popular screen name or RN association) ... so in your case, you would have to lie to the land lord, to get started and setting up a bank account (for rent, household bills) might be tricky, but certainly not impossible. And i'm not sure about how long you can stay (depending where you're from). so if it's outside the EU, you might need a reason to stay (e.g. university, job) ... idk

tl;dr: why not Austria?

Hey!

Thank you for your both answers!

What's up with Austria? Is online poker tax free there?