if we accept that:

(we have to pay tax on winnings)

---this necessarily implies--->

(some arbitrary truncation of time in which we calculate taxible winnings)

This arbitrary truncation of time, in an extreme case, could be considered per hand. This would be like taking 20% rake per hand for tax purposes. The problems with this are obvious, and stem from the fact that we have losing hands.

The arbitrary truncation of time could be by "session." There are clear problems with this since a "session" is undefined. What if i get up to go get dinner and leave my chips at the table? When i come back am i in a new session or the same one? What if i pick my chips up and go have dinner, then come back after and buy in for the same amount? Does the answer to the same/different session question change?

We could truncate time as monthly or quarterly. Im sure you would want to carry forward losses in this case because losing months or quarters are relitively common, and I'd agree with you in this case... But we cant carry forward losses ad infinitum and have the system make sense. To allow that would basically be allowing a player to just pay tax on his lifetime winnings on his death bed.

A year truncation with no carrying forward of losses is appropreate, because winning professionals shouldnt have losing years. Any argument against this is an argument against taxing gambling winnings at all, which is a wet dream, but has a ton of problems.

Unfortunately, Grocery Stores do not turn you down for reward cards and airlines offer frequent flyer miles and membership rewards to those who qualify for them...however from my understanding they do not turn down certain people who qualify because at one point 7 years ago they had a different frequent flyer program.

The issue might not come up now, but I suspect at some point, it will, as they will want to know just how much people get from bonuses and rakeback, and whether or not that will applied towards taxes owed.

exactly. and i'm not saying we need an arbitrary number, but whatever that number is for investors / corporations, (probably just investors if this number is not the same).

an example would be winning 100k in 2008, having like 110k in your stars account, and then losing 90k on jan 1 2009. oops.

It's a very legitimate concern if the supposedly good thing would actually wind up making things much worse. As France shows us, legalized regulated poker can be worse for the players than unregulated illegal poker.

we have a winner ladies and gentlemen

this line of thinking is so thoughtless its painful to read....

1. If you have convinced yourself that you are better without regulation, than you are fooling yourself. If you think things will stay the same forever as status quo you are fooling yourself. If you think poker is better off w/o 70% of the worldwide market (the US Fish) playing your are drastically fooling yourself.

2. Comparing us to France is logically ****ing hilarious. You do realize that France makes up less than 10% of the marketplace, and we make up 70% right? If you understand that then you would realize how ridiculous it is to insinuate that we would have the same outcome. The rake is high in France because the player pool is small obviously. Even if the same exact thing happened in the US, the US would allow competition between cardrooms which would bring down rake, along with Rake not even starting high because the player pool in our country is so much bigger.

Noah is dead on in his post, you guys aren't using your head, your complaining for no reason, with no logical basis. Use your head and quit rationalizing your situation to fit your worries.

Also would like to add about Rakeback....do you guys not pay your taxes on Rakeback or something? Everything I am reading is making it sound like no, if you don't, you guys need to get your act together. Its part of your income, and if your not claiming it your avoiding it. I assume though thats another reason why alot of you are scared of regulation.

I don't understand how people could possibly think US legalization of poker is a bad thing. The gaming industry is a massive money maker, and while FTP and PS have been dominating the market place, they can't compete or hold a candle to the likes of: MGM, Wynn, or even companies like yahoo. If poker is legalized, what is to preclude these companies, or any others, to get in on the action? Absolutely nothing. And along w/those companies dumping mass money in marketing, comes a tidal wave of casual/recreational players, that are otherwise oblivious to online poker.

The legalization of poker would probably eclipse the previous 'poker boom', to the extent that in the past poker was never truly legalized; it was a complete gray area in the law. With the legalization of online poker, we would probably see multi billion dollar businesses get in on the action, and w/that more money for advertising than FTP and PS could possibly put up combined.

Even if rake was double what it currently is - which is such a fallacious notion, because the free market place and thus competition would drive companies to offer more incentives for players to come to their sites - it wouldn't matter because the amount of recreational players coming to the tables would surpass anything online poker has seen to date.

What do we have now: even players at 50NL games are CR/DC members running poker tracker while they play. The legalization of online poker would be the best thing that ever happened to the game, and would create a gold rush that would make the money made in the past golden era look like government cheese hand outs.

such a horrible example.

the solution to this is lock up 15K in some safe interest bearing account. BR is now 95K.

If you lose 90K the next day, theres no fair tax system that will save you from your own stupidity. BTW, our current tax system allows you to now make 90K in 2009 with zero tax liability (assuming youre filing as a pro).

these Dec 31, Jan 1 truncations of time are so ****ing ******ed.

Yes. That's a very legitimate concern, IMHO.

Edit: As I understand it, the PPA's trying their best to make sure that players in opt-out states don't have it so bad. And of course the PPA will fight to keep states from opting out. Unfortunately the opt-out stuff is mostly in a separate bill (and of course the actual act of opting out isn't coming any time soon), so we sorta have to handle the issues separately even though they're clearly related.

What is this about "tax bills" and "tax letters" and whatnot

Minnesota and the other problem states don't have a network of spies that secretly gathers information on all your poker playing.

Recreational players will not bother to pay tax on their winnings in the same way they don't pay income tax when they sell their old stuff on ebay or pay sales tax when they buy something from an out of state retailer. The law says what it says but back in the real world it isn't going to matter to rec players.

If you're playing for actual profit you probably just can't live in those states if they don't have an exemption for pros (or you don't qualify for some reason). But that doesn't matter to the fish.

If somehow the law ends up written in such a way that winnings are withheld according to some patchwork of state laws then things will become pretty tough for recreational players in those states, but more likely the law will just ignore state tax issues entirely and recreational players will do whatever they do.

Any cliffs for european guys like me? thank you!

I did not convince myself of that at all, but it would be dumb to not be concerned about the possibility of regulation being worse than lack of regulation. There are dozens of ways you can effectively outlaw poker by "regulating" it, intentionally or unintentionally. The only people being unthoughtful are those who do not see it as a possibility. Status quo is not guaranteed, but the worst case scenario with or without regulation is the same: death of online poker.
Are you aware of the concept of "example"? The point of such an example that I provided is that there is a possibility of making things worse with regulation.
With all due respect, which is none at all, you're the one posting nothing but rude dribble. I'm not the one putting worth a theory that a market share beyond a certain point makes poker immune from onerous regulation.

You are assuming that regulated poker sites would not be required to report your winnings, however defined, to IRS. That to me is an extremely optimistic assumption, almost irrationally so.

Not sure this is reality but sounds great

kevmath is awesome. he does so much on this site and doesnt get nearly enough credit

I've sent that sorry mother ****er so many letters and emails saying I'll do everything I can to make sure he never gets elected to any office again the FBI is probably watching me right now

I wonder if they could set up something where X amount of any pot is held out for a tax, the way a slot machine jackpot is taxed by the state you win it in

This is a great post. Well said Mordan.

Pretty sure I saw these 2 questions but no answers yet so I'll ask again:

- If all the voting steps go according to plan, how long until the final president signing? 1-2 years? If he does end up signing, how long would it take for the whole thing to get started? Another year? So like 2-3 years total before we could see anything different?

- How would this affect players from canada or europe? Could they play on the regulated US sites? If the answer is yes I imagine they would also be taxed?

how long will it take for this to pass (if it passes).

Im 19 right now and if it passes you have to be 21 to play, so wondering on how long it would take to pass through?

it really could range from about 2 months to 2 years to never.

In my experience, rakeback is through the affiliates though not the poker site. Poker sites already offer identical rewards (FTP Points, Stars VIP Points, etc) to everybody. It would be like telling airlines to charge the same amount for a ticket through travel agents as selling directly.

Once states figure out how to add a state surcharge to the Federal tax rate on online poker, they will decide not to opt out.

Eat it BJ Nemeth...

jk but you were wrong buddy

Hard to tell at this point.

It got through committee, but the house floor leaders could refuse to schedule a vote on it or just basically put it on the back burner for awhile.

This is also a bill I don't see getting through the Senate without some form of conference committee, as there will invariably be edits and amendments.

If they really wanted to move on something like this, it could prob get done in 4-6 months, but this is not the type of legislation that either party will really want to move on.

The best hope for something like this will be the "lame-duck" session of congress from Election Day to January, and I don't even think it could get done then.

There are a ton of hurdles left, this is really just hurdle number 4 of about 15, but it's a significant hurdle nonetheless.