Wow, I just heard about the FBAR rule tonight. If you have over $10,000 combined in all your offshore poker accounts, you likely have to file a special form, Report of Foreign Bank and Financial Accounts (FBAR), with the IRS every year or face stiff penalties -- who knew? Luckily, I don't have that kind of money in my poker accounts yet.
Worrying about how much tax you have to pay on your winnings every week?
What a cool problem to have.
If you're in the US, you have to worry about every winning session you have, not how well you did in any given week.
Thats crazy you could be a big loser all year long about $100,000 then try one last big gamble and chase your losses (not advisable).
YOu manage to get lucky and hit a big streak in the last month or win one big tournament and win $100,000 to break even for the year then end up paying tax on 100K EEK
My advice move to UK they abolished gambling tax years ago
So then just to get this straight, if I have a total of $1000 in winnings for the year, and $800 in losses (meaning my bankroll went up by $200), and I don't itemize, I have to pay 30% tax on my total winnings of $1000, which is around $300 dollars... which means that I will have actually lost $100 for the year?
That seems to me like the absolute worst proposition ever. I sure hope I'm missing something here!
No...
You pay tax on you NET winnings: please read above links so as to stop perpetuating these misconception.