Quote:
Originally Posted by pig4bill
You still have a receipt that says you bought in for $1500 or whatever, so where's the extra tax liability?
Never actually played WSOP but heard from others than when you buy in with lammers, you are considered to have profited your entire cash (presumably because the lammers officially have $0 cash value), as opposed to just the winnings (i.e. if you cash a $1k for $100k, you are liable for $99k in profits, but if you bought in with lammers, you are liable for the whole $100k). If you got the lammers from playing satellites, you can deduct the buyins of those satelittes (assuming you have the receipts). If you got them from buying them from another person, it is effectively impossible to have a receipt, and it wasn't actually a gambling loss that could be easily deducted from your gambling winnings. A poker pro could probably deduct as a work expense but either way it's a hassle if even possible at all.
Keep in mind that because of this system, it is somewhat common practice for people who intend to play future tournaments to sell their lammers and then buy into the tournaments with cash. Legally, such a person should report the sale of lammers as income, but I doubt anyone does. It's the same as not reporting cashes under $5k that are not reported to the IRS, only in this case, people are actively trying to dodge the taxes.
Granted I'm saying this all to you second hand. There are surely people more knowledgeable than I on this subject in the thread. I hope I'm wrong about this whole mess, so please correct me if I am.