Anyone do it properly? I'm looking at turning pro in a few months and can't find a thing on this topic.
I have three friends in the UK who have played for a living for a few years now and have never payed a penny to Gordon Brown. Which I'm massively jealous of, but don't want to risk having to pay up a few years backlog at once if found out. If that's what happens. So does anyone know how to work out what you should pay and how? What about my student loan and national insurance?

There's no way to work out how much you should pay because the status of professional gambler is undefined. If you don't get any income other than playing poker you're not required to even declare your income.

I think the government has been working on taxing gambling profits but this would be a disaster with millions writting off their gambling losses to offset their taxes.

This situation is very unclear at the moment but there's no way you can be liable for any unpaid tax in the future since you never had the status of a tax payer in the first place.

Yep, he's right, you're not liable for anything at the moment. You won't be paying NI though so you won't be accruing state pension benefits (you probably could arrange to pay NI but I don't think it's good value). Your student loan expires after 15 years I think if you don't pay off so you could just forget about it, alternatively you can arrange to make payments seperately if you don't want the interest to accrue.

Cool sounds great, not worried about NI but I intend to play for a few years then use the capital to go into property or something as a back up/long term investment, so prob can't quite completely forget the loan, and the interest on £16k isn't pretty so I'll prob sort that manually as you say. Thanks guys

Extensive and well researched thread here
http://www.taxationweb.co.uk/forum/p...-t1201-40.html
I think when I come to quitting my job I'll pay a trip to the tax office (on a friend's behalf ), get it in writing that there's no tax to pay and ask about paying NI + loan separate. After thought about the NI - who knows where I'll be in 40 years and don't want to be screwed with no pension and no money.

I'd save seperately for the pension, I expect it will be better value that paying the govt to sort it out.

So - you've been told itt that there's no tax to pay. If you bothered using the search facility in this forum you would find the 6 million other times this question has been asked with the same answer every time. Despite all this you are going to go to a tax office and tell them that you are making a nice living on gambling and just want the tax clerks, earning about 15k a year and paying tax, to confirm that you don't have to pay any.

Why can't you guys just STFU and be f**ing unemployed or retired or whatever. Why the f** do you have to be "professionals"? If the tax situation in the uk ever changes it will be 100% because idiots like you can't stop running your mouth.

Nice of you to contribute your comments so constructively.
I'll get it in writing (as many seem to have done if you bothered to search other sources) because, however strongly you might feel, its what's called a contract/guarantee, rather useful for possible future changes in the translation of the not 100% clear law. Which when it might be worth 50% of ~£100k per annum I treat as worth doing. I don't suppose these poor tax clerks are going to say "bugger me, this chap's making 8x what I do and doesn't need to pay tax, I'm going to make him!".
Or, I could not, be off the radar and unemployed save the intermittent £20k deposits into my bank from exotic overseas accounts and hope that it all looks fine.
Get some real world experience away from your responsibilty dodging pikey camp and try again.

To be fair I agree with davmcg.

The law is very clear. Gambling winnings aren't even considered income. Thus you can't pay income tax, when there is no income. There is no separate gambling tax. Gamble away and enjoy yourself. I could link many articles confirming this, but I think others have already done so. You already have good confirmation in this thread.

A few back the regulations regarding gambling tax were changed and clarified, so that rather than tax the gambler, the Govt taxed the profits of gambling companies.

I would advise against discussing this with anyone at any tax office. The law is as such because the Govt does not believe it will make any money from taxing gamblers. But the more queries it gets from professional gamblers the more it might start to see it as a money making plan, especially when you see Gambling tax policy in other countries.

Just keep quiet and enjoy.

now that we are talking about UK taxes etc, I got another question:

Can someone move to UK on a visitor/tourist visa, earn money through 'gambling/poker' and still pay no taxes or any other fees ?

Thanks

I believe you are required to pay taxes in your home country for 6 months after, but it depends alot on where you are from and if you have dual citizenship.

About the student loan thing, since it expires after a period of time... Why not take the money you would use to pay it off, and invest it in a high interest savings account? That way the interest you earn would offset the interest you would be accruing on the loan, and if you get a job where you would have to pay the loan down, you can pay the minimum and hopefully there still be a balance when it expires in 15 years. You will then have the cash you invested+interest in a savings account as a lump sum.

There is no such thing as a pro poker player or pro gambler under UK tax law the only way you would pay taxes on gambling winnings is if they where as part of a trade. Such as a bookmaker hedges some of his liability with another bookmaker, or a professional horse trainer or owner betting on his own horses using his insider info.

Playing poker is not a trade in the UK, and does not need to be declared. If you did file a self assessment tax form it would only be for other income it would not be correct to declare poker income as it would be irrelevant.

I'm originally from India, where online gambling is not legal. Poker does not have any specific laws, i believe, but might be categorised as 'gambling' for legal purposes. So, not sure if I can file tax returns in India for poker earnings and not be penalised :P

to add, I do not have dual citizenship.

thanks for the reply

Sign on, then youget your NI payed for you, and if you are a home owener the gov will pay that too. Sick life.


Then you live the balla lifestyle of pokarz winnings!@!~!~!

The idea is that some people wanna know the situation they're in (and assess how long this situation is likely to last)

Right now, paying no tax on gambling profits is nothing more than passively taking advantage of a loophole in the tax system, and that loophole exists because some in the legal profession seem clueless about the nature of gambling (good for us).

Also I very much doubt the government is not interested in taxing winning gamblers, they'd love to do that regardless of how many times they manifest themselves at the tax office. The problem is that they don't want losing players to offset their taxes. That's the main reason they don't want to introduce taxes. They simply feel that what they would gain from one side, they would lose from the other. What's the point of doing that if that's likely to affect their relationship with a striving gaming industry that creates many jobs for the area.

Fine about people needing clarity, but they are more likely to get that here, rather than asking a clerk in a tax office. Loopholes like these tend to get closed once civil servants get an idea that people are taking advantage of them.

Sure but in this case you must understand that it may not even be in the tax revenues authority's interest to tax winners because of all the losers (the majority) claiming tax credits against their regular income.

Maybe you're not getting taxed for a reason (and that's not because HM Revenue does not know about the loophole).

There is no loop hole here. We are talking about case law from 1925 which has been listed on the goverment website for years. If it was a loop hole it would have been closed by now.

Yeah, but it isn't impossible to impose a tax policy on all gambling bets.

Regardless of Graham v Green, until 2002 there was a 10% tax levied on all bets placed at a bookmaker. If the Govt, particularly a more socially conservative one, was so inclined and felt it would generate significant funds, we could see a scenario where 10% of poker deposits go to the taxman. So numerous phone calls to tax offices starting off with "I'm a professional poker player and......" may alert them earlier than otherwise to the fact that there may be money to be made from poker players, regardless of winning and losing.

No the loophole is that poker isn't gambling (neither is horseracing and that's what the case was about) and as a poker professional you are very much exercising a trading activity. In fact pro sport/horse racing punters are also trading.

The law is an antiquity coming from days were people were stupid and I'm glad to tell you that 80 years on, people are still as clueless.


No deposits cannot be taxed. You probably have to stop thinking that the government or the state can't simply do whatever they want on a whim. They need to stick to certain methods, usually a constitutional framework or something similar for countries without a constitution. I know the American government is basically been urinating on the US constitution for the last decade but that's an exception and probably won't last long.

Of course the UK government could come up with legal taxes such as the old gambling tax. If my memory serves me well the tax in question was 9% and you could choose to have it levied on your stake or on your winnings. So a similar poker tax would be one on the rake (similar to what France is implementing right now which I believe is 4%). I'm not entirely sure the UK government wants to do this since it's precisely the abolition of the tax on wagers that has lead to the corporate gambling boom in the UK but obviously it's always possible the government does something stupid (never rule that one out).

But that's besides the point, we're talking about income tax here.

Poker IS classed as gambling in the UK. There was a case in 2007 where it was ruled a club owner required a gambling licence to offer poker games.

The 1925 case and subsequent 1937 case (involving playing golf for money) declared that it was because that gambling on horses and golf was NOT a trade that it was not subject to income tax.

I think it may be slightly naive to suggest the Govt could never tax poker deposits. They may not want to, or think they will make much by doing so, but if they saw it as a way to get money into the public coffers (and public coffers are currently pretty bare) then they would do it. I agree that it would be a specific gambling tax rather than income tax.

I stand by original assertion that the law is very clear, and it can only do harm to seek confirmation from those who a.) would be able to add nothing extra to what you can get from here and b.) may be alerted to the fact that there seems to more and more professional gamblers paying no taxes.

Of course poker is gambling. The owners of this site even say us much in there books. It's gambling on any reasnoble non leagal assement and it's gambling under UK law.

If you want more advices and informations, get an appointment with a tax lawyer. People at the tax office are probably less competent than 2+2 pros on this very specific topic (in France, they have no clue and can say anything about it).

More than that it is a consistent government policy. They tax the bookies, casinos, bingo halls etc etc on their profits it is a nice little earner.

The UK should cut the online tax rate and get most sites on shore but the reason they don't is the high rates on the casinos and bookies. The punter pays nothing not as a loophole but becaus that way the gov gets more - from the companies.