Ask Spoony About Poker, Life, and Anything Else

[dranger7070]

It's pretty well known you play poker for a living, and obviously you pay taxes on them. How do you go bout keeping track? What kind of % does the US take out for poker earnings? Any tax breaks? Do you take it to H&R Block or whatever like everyone else or do you have to do something different?

Anything else related you might want to add is obviously welcome.

[spoonitnow]

It's pretty well known you play poker for a living, and obviously you pay taxes on them. How do you go bout keeping track? What kind of % does the US take out for poker earnings? Any tax breaks? Do you take it to H&R Block or whatever like everyone else or do you have to do something different?

Anything else related you might want to add is obviously welcome.

PokerTracker combined with asking PokerStars for a list of all of the bonuses you got during the year gets it done.

Poker earnings are taxed just like any other income except if you don't file as a professional you have to do this stupid thing that often makes you lose your standard deduction so you end up paying a slightly higher rate. You have to add up all of your winning sessions and that goes under gambling winnings on your taxes, then you add up all of your losing sessions and that goes under gambling losses as a deduction. Unfortunately in a few states you can't deduct gambling losses, basically making it -EV to play poker at all unless you file as a professional. When you file as a professional, you just do your taxes like you would if you ran a business. This means you have to pay an extra 7.7% or so because of the self-employment tax, but it also means if you buy a new computer or get coaching or whatever you can take deduct it as a business expense.

H&R Block will fuck you in the ass. That's their job.

[oskar]

If I told you you had a beautiful body, would you hold it against me?