You are now accepting legal advice from a site that has ads?

This is not a real law firm's site. This is one of those sites people who desperately don't want to work set up so that they can make chump change from people clicking on ads.

bout tree fiddy. Now stop posting please.

You can still make use of TFSA without filing.

To be granted TFSA contribution room you much file income taxes.

Well I haven't filed and have been contributing, maybe in error?.Although I have no idea no idea how legitimate these sites are a quick google search returned this:

"You can contribute to a TFSA without filing a tax return. However, the CRA will not provide you with a TFSA room limit as this amount is shown on your notice of assessment when you file a return. You should keep track of your room limit to ensure you do not contribute more than your TFSA room."

You must be over 18 and a Canadian resident for tax purposes to get contribution room.

Filing a tax return is the easiest way to show residency.

If you don't file a return you run the risk of having
The tfsa taxed until you prove you are/were a resident.

Is this a good idea for someone who wants to be able to get a mortgage with poker earnings as my only source of income?

I am not really sure what I should be doing in my situation, avoiding filling a return has been my plan for about 2 years. Starting to think that might not be the best idea.

Peter Ingram does not know what he is talking about. Why are you spreading misinformation in this thread?

If you can put a down payment of 35% and have a good credit history there is a major bank in Canada that will give you a mortgage with no proof of income and really no questions or concerns. Got mine last week for a 4 year fixed rate of 3.14.

but won't that just lead to the CRA wondering how you can afford a house with no income?

Well you have to file your taxes first. But if it's the bank you are concerned with there is options. Sorry I thought your concern was getting a mortgage and not the gov't.

You have to file your taxes because the lender needs to see that you don't owe the government money but you don't need to declare your poker winnings to qualify.

I'm surprised a major bank is doing NIQ mortgages. National Bank does them and is certainly a major bank but they used to require 50%. There are plenty of lenders that do NIQ mortgages at 65% LTV and even some that do them at 75% LTV but as far as I know none big five banks will do them.

So declare 0 income basically is what your saying and as long as I can put down a good sized down payment I won't have to worry about getting a mortgage.

And after I buy the house what is the plan when the CRA comes after me looking for how I can afford a house with 0 income? Obviously I will talk to a lawyer before I do anything

does anyone have more infos about this?

People who answer the phone at CRA know nothing. A while back I called about a non-gambling related question and got escalated to someone who also could not answer the question. A third person was supposed to call me and they did. They started holding A to be true but when I explained my reasons for believing Not A was the correct answer they changed their answer because I seemed like I knew what I was talking about. I'm sure there are some people at CRA who are not morons but you will never get them on the phone by calling the 1-800 number.

There really is no plan. This though is no different than if CRA comes to your house and asks how you can afford to have a large amount in investments or even just having the money in cash. Eventually you get to a point where you need to use your cash for something. The only concern with a home purchase over say buying an expensive car relates to if CRA monitors something property related. I can't answer that but maybe a working lawyer could.

then u hard ball negotiate them to accept a pittance w/ some sort of guarantee of u being a good boy and paying ur taxes in the future and if they won't be gentle u hire a good lawyer and win over the jury.

Tax Court doesn't have juries.

those bastards

onnunniko684, you are rapidly going on to the ignore list of many of the posters on this thread. I direct you to comment #523 and 524 posted over three years ago on this thread.

Henry17 says, in #524 The CRA Help Line is just that ... a help line. An employee's opinion is not the rule of law. Even a CRA examiner, when they look at your return, and remove your gambling income stating "oh, that's not taxable", can be reversed at any point within six years of your filing.

If it turns out to be reversed at a later date, you may have a case to say that you shouldn't have to pay the additional penalties for not filing earlier based on the opinion rendered. Paper documents from the CRA would then carry significantly more weight than your remembered phone call to Betsy in Summerside. But the taxes owed would still have to be paid.

For reference, FWIW, this is the current *legal* opinion of the CRA regarding gambling winnings.

Why don't you get the references with direct links that have already been posted in this thread instead of wasting time posting your dribble.

Any good lawyer/accountant in the montreal area concerning poker income? Thx!

bump

Wrt the value of CPP contributions, this here presents a good starting point http://canadianmoneyforum.com/showthread.php?t=10291.

The discussion concludes that the value of the CPP contributions vs not contributing depends upon the rate of return you could get elsewhere. But that as a short answer, yes, it is worth it.

However they miss several things in their analysis.

First, the CPP plan is a defined benefit plan, and thus the value of contributing is much higher, the closer you are to retirement.

Second, they base their analysis upon the current, historically high, contribution rates. This overstates the cost of the CPP benefits.

Third, they don't properly value the many ancillary benefits of the CPP. Ie survivor benefits to your spouse, children, disability benefits if you can't work to retirement, etc.

In summary, yes, in my professional opinion for most people their CPP contributions are well worth it.

Wrt to the larger issue of the taxation of poker winnings/income, I have the following observations.

First, the model of performers is a good one to emulate. Many have erratic incomes, and unconventional expenses. Many will have some form of formal incorporation to reflect this, and which allows them to allocate their income as both personal and corporate as appropriate. Many others will operate as a non-incorporated sole proprietorship which allows for the deduction of many expenses that would not be eligible for a regular taxpayer.

Second, there are so many tax credits, exemptions, RRSP allowances etc, that really one does not really pay a significant % of one's income at lower incomes. Really, if you are a pro making 50k with no other income, you could easily fully disclose your income and pay virtually no tax, all fully legit.

Third, if you are making big money, $200k per year perhaps. Well, eventually the gov't will get wind of it and they will give consideration to the source. Far more likely that they think you are an unsavory criminal than a talented poker player.


Anyways, all just my opinions. But I leave you with this thought....

To my great surprise, it seems that a lot of people on this thread have not done the the calculations to assess even the financial pros and cons of their options as relates to their own personal situations. And if that lack of care in your financial matters continues, it will be the biggest -ev of your life. Seriously, don't be such financial fish. You are smart poker players - be smart in your finances!

Doing the math on CPP is not difficult. The value of DIY is at least twice what you'll get from CPP even if we increase the average lifespan by a few years to account for advances.

As to the argument that the government will eventually catch up to you if you make more than $200k I see absolutely no reason to assume that is true. Although my sample size is small I see nothing that implies CRA is even trying. I do agree that if they wanted to catch people they could but the public service is about employing lazy incompetent French speakers and doing work would interfere with the development of their Farmville.

This has likely been asked a ton on here, but im having problems figuring it out.

This year i have withdrawn about 22k from online poker, it would have been more but i lost a ton of money due to fulltilt.

Obviously 22k is not enough to live off of, but I have savings + my wife makes good money so we live fine. The poker money is my only income.

What would everyone recommend I do? Submit that I am a poker pro and pay the small amount of tax, it just seems kind of funny to say im a pro with this kind of money, but each month i have withdrawn and rent comes out of the same bank account.