Hello,

I cashed for around $9k in a tournament at Commerce last year. I am a nonresident alien and I do not report my gambling income to the US, based on the treaty between the US and my country. I have a full-time job in the US and I am still on my student visa, so poker is considered as a hobby of mine.


I was issued a form 592-B and 7% of my prize was withheld. I am trying to understand whether there is any way for me to get this 7% back and whether I need to file a CA tax form (I live in another state). I am also curious whether I actually owe CA 0%, 7% or more than 7%.

Thank you everyone for the help!

When tax is withheld, you get it back filing a tax return, yes. What happens is you calculate tax owed, and if withheld > owed, you get a refund.

Thank you for your reply. I know that if withheld > owed, a refund is given. What I don't know is whether I owe tax in CA.

Typically you pay tax where the income was 'earned' .. not in your State of residence. But some States have reciprocal agreements with other States, which means the two States figure it out between themselves instead of dealing with thousands of miscellaneous returns. These agreements may be limited to W2 earnings and not apply to investment or other income .. so you need to find out.

I assume the 7% was Federal Tax .. so you will need to file a Federal Return to get any of that back. Then you move on to the State situation.

You should be able to get free tax advice almost anywhere in April .. online or in person .. in hopes of you filing through their service, so take advantage of that. GL

The 7% was almost certainly for the State of California. I've never had anything withheld in any state for Federal taxes (though you can ask the casino to withhold Federal taxes if you wish). Usually, these state withholdings have no requirement that you do anything. The player can ignore this, let CA keep the 7%, and all is fine. Or, they can fill out the paperwork to do a CA tax return. If it turns out that their overall taxes owed to CA, if they had lived there all year, was 5%, then they can file and get 2% returned of the 7% that was withheld.

All of this is my current understanding of things, and could be wrong. I'm not a lawyer, nor a tax expert, and you would be foolish to rely entirely upon this advice.

How much was the winnings? Reason I'm asking is you would probably need to hire an accountant that's familiar with gaming tax laws that would know what form needs to be filed but to be honest I didn't think poker was included in the treaties, but of course I could be wrong.

That's not how those treaties look like. They don't list any specific activities. The following is everything related to income in the US that's in the tax treaty between the US and the country that I'm a citizen of:
That's all. Everything federal income tax is included.

That doesn't apply to me because I'm a "resident alien" right now. OP is a "non-resident alien" though and specifically in the US on a student visa. The latter is important to be able to claim tax treaty benefits. Other non-resident aliens have to pay taxes in the US on the part of their worldwide income that's effectively connected to the US. That's not the case on a student visa.

Generally speaking the tax treaties are between another county and the federal government of the US, not individual states and therefore don't apply to the latter. At that point it starts getting pretty difficult though and I'm not sure if it would be worth the hassle to try to recoup 7% of $9k = $630?

FWIW, basically all European pros who play in the WSOP (and other tournaments) are tax residents of countries that have a double tax treaty with the US and therefore don't pay taxes on their gambling winnings in the US.