Quote:
I find it amazing how many people on 2p2 pay/or want to pay taxes on online poker winnings.
When the definition of "windfall" versus an "expectation of profit" is determined on a case-by-case basis, most people would rather sleep well at night having paid the tax.
(That is, rather than get arrested for tax fraud and sleep on a rat-feces infested bunkbed underneath Bubba Smith, who murdered his mother while she slept.)
Alexos, it also depends on how many hours you've spent over that year playing poker. If you enter one tournament only, and happen to win 6 figures, you've got a much better case for "windfall" than "expectation of profit". If you've also played cash games for the same six hours a day and had NO profit from those during that period, it's pretty hard to claim that 6 hours/day is a pastime that does not constitute self-employment, in spite of all of your profit coming from the one tournament win.
I believe I have said before in this thread (and if I haven't, TorontoCFE has), it's all about "money in" versus "money out". Unless you can prove to them via records where the money came from, all they will see is the net increase in your net worth, consider that as income, and ask "Where is my 29%?" (assuming you are paying the top marginal tax rate at the federal level)
And, for the record, I didn't claim my winnings for 2006 as income, and it is VERY unlikely I will do so for 2007 without further clarification from CCRA (or an Aba-esque rise through NL cash game play ... hey, it *might* happen).