Get a good accountant. Money well spent.

FYP.

Also F me.... I haven't started my taxes yet. Epic beat. Still waiting on taxes for business to be finished before I can do my personal ones. Although I guess I could *start* my taxes... Don't want to get depressed though.

How much is an accountant? I'm still a grad student, and even including some poker money made less than $20k last year.

Turbotax ftw??

Interesting link . . . explains the financial system problems using poker players as a market . . . not a bad read.

http://www.angrybearblog.com/2010/03...ives.html#more

I'm using TurboTax at the moment, and trying to input my poker money as hobby income, with poker losses as hobby expenses. If I tweak the numbers in either direction, despite leaving the net income the same, my tax liability is swinging wildly. It's frustrating.

The long and short of it is that it depends. I'm not sure that it would be +EV for you, as it stands now (based on your reply). The more complicated your tax forms get, the more invaluable a good accountant becomes.

Don't. Just treat it as net gambling winnings and move on. Don't start getting fancy about trying to deduct internet, coaching, etc. You're then going to get targeted to be audited.

Also keep in mind Turbo Tax isn't perfect. Got a letter from the IRS saying my taxes were wrong. Fortunately, Turbo Tax missed a credit I was eligible for and the IRS just shipped the extra money into the bank account.

I now understand why I'm running so bad for the last 8 months, it is just to make up for the one "run goot" when I needed it.

most def FTW! I love turbotax. Effective Fed+state income this year: 19.5% (effective tax rate == tax paid / adjusted gross income)

While I don't disagree, I read someplace recently that the likelihood of being audited if you make under six figures in income was something around 0.5%.

I agree that there's no reason to do anything to make that probability any more likely, though.

My taxes took me exactly 40 minutes to do. I live in Canada, and I'm getting a refund.

Unless I'm misunderstanding you, I think this is wrong. Check out the USA taxes sticky in the legislation forum. For US folks, you need to report gross winnings (the sum of all your winning sessions) as income and then itemize a deduction for your gambling losses (the sum of all your losing sessions). If currently the standard deduction is better than itemizing -- too bad for you!

Agreed, amateurs can't deduct these things (AFAIK). If you are professional poker player then you really should be consulting with Russ Fox or someone like him who can make sure you do everything correctly and have pristine records that will make an audit a dawdle.

I highly recommend listening to the Deuces Cracked (free podcast) Russ Fox interview regarding poker and US income tax. Russ Fox is a tax guy (preparer? accountant?) who is an expert in gambling income tax law.

Technically correct, I'm wrong. I believe it can be broken down by any reasonable time frame, so it doesn't have to be a session (live players do it by day). Oh well, if they nail me, I'll just call Sklansky to testify that it is just all one long session anyway.

It does have to be a session. It is the definition of a session that is fuzzy. (i.e. I'm in violent agreement with you).

Sigh. Thanks for your help everyone, I'll figure it out eventually.

Mine took about 5 minutes and I'm getting $2k back

taxes do suck. just shipped off my customary multi-bankroll check to the govt so they can give lazy people stuff. love this time of year!

Last day o' March, and it's a race to the top of the post counts! Who's going to win?

got a mad food poisoning three days ago (I dont know from what but I was in a really rough shape with puking + fever + delirium).
Now feeling slightly better even though my belly is still making a lot of weird noises.

Any old grandma tricks to get fit again ?

I did this because it was the easiest (and i seriously disagree with any other way to do it), regardless of how many posts i've read in the legislative forum saying it's the incorrect way for an amateur to do it.

Just order the Canon SLR from FTP. Now I need to order those lenses.

2nd page bump...

almost bought a SLR the other day but could not make up my mind (as often....)

I hate that the chat thread is going and that everyone is just using the "regs" chat thread.

i post here more than the reg thread cause the reg thread just sucks nowadays.