Hello. I've been wondering about this for a long time. If I got to the top and earned 3 million $, I would really hate to pay 20% tax to the state.Is there a safe way to go without tax? Something like bank accounts abroad? Do players like Oliver Busquet, Isildur and so on tax their profits?
Sorry, but LOL at this question. Why not try and smuggle 6 and 7figures by the IRS or different tax agencies whilst putting your face out there and having it associated with your name and your earnings. Catching you would be like a walk in the park. Aside that - paying taxes makes you part of society you live in and whose resources you use every day, by not doing so you basically freeload on others - just saying!
Normally players that make a living with poker do clearify the situation very carefully, since their names mostly are very well known. The real questions is: does one have to tax if the market has no clear regulation regarding poker in country X?
Hi.
In countries like the USA, a lot of consistent winners pay taxes. I've heard the ocassional story of a player not doing it, but it's often a degenerate type player that just uses all he can to swing up and down and rarely has the money or has any interest in paying back borrowed money or taxes.
In other countries, this is nowhere near the case. Like Barrin said, some places have a gray area on taxes. Canada may be one of these places, I'm not sure about Germany, and obviously you have a legitimate tax free area in the UK.
There's also people that refuse to pay high taxes in some places. You have the Netherlands and Belgium as two of those places and sometimes people move to avoid their ridiculous taxes on poker.
But I think the majority pay when it is clear that they have to, even in those ridiculous tax structures like the Netherlands. I only talk to a few successful players from there, and they all pay their taxes, which really sucks for them, but as the saying goes "it is what it is."
Germany is actually pretty clear about the subject although players love to ignore this fact by closing their eyes and hoping for the best. When you provide your living through (online)poker as a professional it is treated as a business and you´ll have to pay. There are some gray areas though, e.g. if you are enrolled as a student, your job basically is to study, so you cannot apply for unemployment relief or other forms of social aids e.g.. So since your job cannot be a professional poker player, you might get a pass from paying taxes on your poker winnings. I think it only makes kind of sense if you understand the reasons behind it though. But before masses of people start migrating to Germany enrolling as students, if they audit you because you earn boatloads of money as a student, and you can´t proof to them that your studies is your "main occupation" by showing progress in your studies, you´ll have a big problem as it is up to them to tag you as a professional. Again, you have to put it into perspective. If you are a student, who picks up poker for a couple of years to make studying a bit more enjoyable, nobody (should) care, unless the money gets so juicy that the government gets intrested in.If you decide to do this for the longterm you probably plan on having a family, you need health insurance, you want to be backed by the social systems of your country, you want to sent your kids to public school (if they are any good in your country), you want to travel on proper roads and bridges that dont collapse when you drive over them, ... and thats why it is just logical to pay taxes, to pay for your share in society.
It's not so much that germans want to close their eyes - plenty of german pros moved to the UK or Malta etc. pp just to be on the 'safe side' but if nowadays you ask 10 german tax lawyers you will receive 10 different answers. Not only that, but with german professional Eddy Scharf suing against the german state, a definition IF on german territorry Poker is or is not a game of skill alone (as the german IRS is telling "Mr. Scharf YOU can win with any cards at any time") is upcomeing and this ruleing alone might change the situation for lots of germans pros immediatelly and might have long term consequences one cannot even imagine right now.
Hi.
In this regards whatever the ruling might be, what we learned from the past like Black Friday or from the european debt crises - dont get your hopes up too much. Despite courts are considered independent they still seem to rule a lot in the interests of their respective governments.From this standpoint, if a Mr. Scharf is suing cuz he is unwilling to pay the taxes they demand, well it is his right but the outcome most likely will influence all german players, mostly likely in a bad way. After all, Poker in Germany is (or was) a sweet thing (if i think about some other European countries right now where onlinepoker earnings and numbers are dwindling thanks to regulation and overtaxation).
what are your sources for that claim? the situation is actually pretty damn unclear.all gambling in germany is usually state supervised and the operator of the gambling is taxed.in germany, taxing gambling income would imply that losses from gambling are also tax deductible. as a result, imposing a tax on gambling profits would cost the state money instead of yielding it a profit. gambling income is not taxable in germany.
So if you play and spend most of your time in a country where poker is tax free, even though you dont have their nationality, you dont have to pay tax there? (eg. holiday visa or moving between the EU states)
Good luck with that:http://www.irs.gov/Businesses/International-Businesses/United-States-Income-Tax-Treaties---A-to-Z If the treaty does not cover a particular kind of income, or if there is no treaty between your country and the United States, you must pay tax on the income in the same way and at the same rates shown in the instructions for the applicable U.S. tax return. How i understand it (as most countries have these double tax treaties), if your income is not listed in them the tax code for your home country applies and you cannot skip it. This is all not a problem if you actually spent the rest of your live in this tax free onlinepoker heaven. But as soon as you want to move money outside of it, you might have a problem again.
There was a little law that the first 90k or so of your income was tax free if you were a US citizen living abroad for something like 75% or more of days (outside the USA) and made your income out there.I don't know the specifics of it, but I heard a lot of players and businesses in the poker world discussing this 3 or 4 years ago. So I could be wrong, but that's what I was hearing back then and some players moving abroad were taking advantage of it back then.
And things like creating a bank account in Switzerland or Singapore? I read a few things about the bank secrecy. I thought it would be great for a top poker player to have an account there. On the other hand, it would make sense to pay taxes once you become lets say popular in the poker community, and you also earn money from promotions and so on. Then I would be happy to pay taxes.
Before you plan on going this route, you really should read up on the fundamentals of "saving taxes" and maybe open up a newspaper and have a look what the current situation is about the banking secret in Switzerland. Right now you are probably better off in some 3rd world banana republic (in every regard as an online poker player!)
Switzerland is never gonna surrender the banking secret. Germany will block the agreement with Switzerland and this will be their biggest mistake, because any regulation going even slightly further (and Germany wants to go way further) will be blocked by the Swiss population by vote. Even, if the signed agreements would be signed it would not be a problem to smuggle your money into Swiss accounts - the statements are simply easier accessable, but then again, if you are a top pro earning six figures, Switzerland will grant you a tax deal other EU countries can't compare with anyway.
Hi.
Google American citizens with Swiss bank accounts on google news Barrin. Things have changed.
I am very well aware of the agreement Switzerland made with the USA. They also made agreements with Austria, Germany and so on and so forth. So what? We both know that there were thousands of workarounds before the agreements were signed. What google news says will not change a thing. The main problem is: the swiss politicians are leaking the power to push this law (or any law for that matter - it is because of the people and the people only that we are not a member of the European Union) to the limit and Swiss people are very vell aware that the Swiss banks are to big to fail and will protect their banks accordingly. Swiss people are not scared of the big bad USA....ain't Mexico here you know :)
Hi.
I was thinking a bit and I gave this whole thing another thought.When I think about taxes as me giving the money out to support my little country, to make the security, the healthcare, the school system and everything better, it doesn't bother me at all. It's like charity. The only thing that sucks is that you give money to people who you don't even know, and no one is going to thank you for that.But the reward is that you can live without the fear of the tax office and with a good feeling that you are helping other people.