Hello readers,

as I have heard, Spain is recently claiming income tax for poker.

Appearently Pokerstars announced, that for the upcoming event, this regulation will not be applied.

Since I cannot find any written confirmation on this, I am curious to hear your guys input on this.

Thanks,

Olli

They've double taxed people in the past. Google for Ensan for example.

https://www.soloazar.com/en/category...as-sportpeople


There will be many tournament pros who skip BCN and wait it out this year.

@BambusUndReis Did PokerStars officialy announce something about taxes at EPT Barcelona ??

Pokerstars announced they will award the prizemoney for EPT Barcelona events without deductibles.
Still, the Spanish goverment will enforce tax on pokerwinnings no matter if the player is foreign or not.

https://twitter.com/smoulo33/status/...199263237?s=20

I'm confused how this topic hasn't gotten more attention. It doesn't mean **** that pokerstars announces they won't be witholding taxes. You WILL be taxed, just like an European playing in USA for most countries. Sometimes they don't withold it imidiately, but they will come for you to pay up.

In this case in Spain that means you play 19%. That means they will look for you.. They will find you.. And they will make you pay.

this

very confusing

Yeah, it's the difference between poker being a thing in Spain, or it being straight up dead. Yet no pro's talking about it publicly.

They wanna tax people from outside the EU 24% over every cash (inside Eu 19% ) A lot of players from outside EU come to play every year. You would think this gets some more attention.

Pretty hilarious how you say this with such confidence, as if you know something most other people don't. Would love it if there was a way to bet against you here, because you're very obviously wrong.

Have fun being so confident in yourself though.

what kind of bet are you talking about? We can find a way i am sure.

The person I quoted said to someone “you WILL pay tax” so clearly he knows something nobody else knows. Or he’s just talking nonsense. Obviously the latter.

It’s common sense that if you (hypothetically) took just the 8 people who FT the main, and assume they’re all EU citizens who live somewhere that doesn’t tax poker, that none of them will end up paying tax. Are you really saying you agree with him that in this hypothetical situation all 8 players will end up paying a tax to Spain? Do you really, truthfully believe that will happen? It’s a near impossibility to anyone with common sense.

It’s almost like he’s posting here purposely trying to scare people into not attending a poker festival, it’s kind of weird. The same guy has also made a post about this on Reddit and on his Twitter also, and probably other places too….clearly has some sort of agenda.

And also, just to be clear since all I've said is that people won't get taxed. I'll post how this will play out imo.

What I think is fairly obvious and what will actually happen is this: Most everyone will come to Barcelona as usual, nobody will ever have a tax issue or demand except for possibly a german or two (which isn't anything new...they've been getting them for over a decade from what I've heard. Not only Ensan, few others as well I think). And everything with the EPT will be as usual.

What I've heard from two UK guys is that Stars has already won a court case over this new Spanish tax regulation and happened before the ESPT Castellon stop. Not sure if that's true or not but I don't know why anyone would make it up.

I'm also using common sense in that Spain has no ground to just decide to tax non tax residents. Nobody is bound by any EU tax rules to pay them ****, and you can definitely just tell them to **** off if they come at you with some sort of demand a year or more down the line.

It's not even realistic for them to collect a tax like this. Any country who does take some sort of tax on MTT payouts (Vietnam, India, US in some instances) they take it up front as they're paying you out....for a reason. Because you can't just hit up foreigners a year or more later and tell them to pay you money. That makes zero sense and nobody is going to pay you.

It's almost as if this note they've put out is so that they don't have to collect tax at payouts because they know that will make their huge events go away, but they want an opportunity to try some nonsense down the line if they decide to.


One thing is for sure, if this 24% tax or whatever it is were actually a thing...EPT Barcelona would not be a thing ever again because hardly anybody would show up. And Estrellas tour would be lucky to have 1 stop and it'd be all locals. And I am pretty sure Stars will give a more clear answer after this EPT and the upcoming ESPT in Malaga because having all these people worried is nonsense, they're probably just limited in what they can say right now.

But the guy above whole told the other guy "You WILL pay them tax!" is laughable. Nobody is going to pay Spain ****. They Spanish government have a long history proving they're not logical in any way and especially with tax situations. Not really any logic with much of the things I've heard them do surrounding poker taxation, brexit, plenty of other things. So people actually being worried about this "note" or whatever you want to call it with this new regulation, then I guess fair enough...be worried and if you want to be safe just skip EPT Barcelona, but there is zero chance anybody who cashes in Barcelona this year will end up actually paying anyone this 19-24% tax.

how is the situation for cashgames? is there any tracking?

No they’re not tracked at all, how would they? Even USA doesn’t track that.

I’ve heard recently London rooms do some sort of source of funds checks if you’re cashing out over a certain amount but I’m not sure how exactly that works or which rooms. But as far as taxes go I can’t imagine there’s a way to tax cash games anywhere on earth lol

7400 players in the 1k

Still think Spain is going to come and make everyone pay tax? Lmao

No, but they can get after the big winners I would imagine. From logistical and financial point of view, it wouldn't make sense to chase everyone.

Cashed relatively big in the main, will follow up if I get taxed.

Any updates? Any word of any big winners getting followed up