POKER INFO - Poker Taxes

if i declare myself as a professional poker player, arent the taxes less compared to someone who works a regular job, and earns a little money gambling.im talking about 200-250 K a year.im not sure how to declare myself as a pro poker player.

I'm doing my son's taxes - he's a student and plays online poker. I want to make sure he pays taxes on his winnings, so any advice anyone can give me is great. The site he plays on hasn't sent him any info on how much he won in 2004. Should he just track it the best he can and use that figure?Does he need to report how much he bet vs. how much he won or is it enough just to have the amount he won?By the way - before anyone lectures me on this, I'm far less than thrilled that he does this, but let's pretend a college student listens to his mother for two seconds.Thanks for any help.nancy

Hey guys, don't ppost your real email address on the net and then ask about dodging taxes.Not SMART!!

I live in TX, which does not have a state income tax. I am currently a college student, and my only source of income comes from online poker, where ive made about 4 thousand this year. I have not kept track of every session like i think your suppose to. But how should i go about filing for taxes? and would i be classified as a pro, since its basicly like a job to me, and no other source of income. And also how much would i have to pay to the IRS for federal income tax. ty

It used to be the case that anything less than 10k being wired into the country would not raise an IRS flag. Now, especially post 9/11, consistent deposits of money form outside the country could be problematic. My husband is a pro, and for online we use Neteller. This way, you can look back at what you have sent to your bank account by EFT for the whole year, add it up, and that's your income. And for those who were wondering, it doesn't really count until you get it OUT somehow--so the money you have on your PokerStars account, for example, is not taxable. It's not income until it is actual, spendable money. Cause at that point, you could still lose everything you've won before it even gets into your hot little hand, see? So all you have to do is use the same intermediary service (like Neteller) and look at your EFTs. This has been effective for us at least. Might be a good idea to put aside 1/3 of your winnings as well, if you don't want a nasty surprise come tax time. If you are strict about it, you may get a "refund" in that you might not have to use all 33%. But that's a good rule of thumb.

A few years ago i cashed out twice from an online poker site and received 2 seperate checks and deposited both of them. They totaled about 700 dollars. Now i didn't bother to report that as income in any way. Should i have? What about if i cash out and receive checks this year? Do i report it as poker winnings and how do i determine poker losses? Basically can you get away with depositing checks from one of these sites without getting audited down the road and having to pay tax on it?

I play poker on partypoker.com and i play at casinos and I play amongst friends. The withdrawals from my partypoker account to my bank account exceeds thatt of $40k last year so I was wondering what happens if I don't report taxes?