I use Poker Tracker for all of my online play, and I am certain that will be more than enough to make any auditor happy. My accountant was impressed with the sample reports I printed for her. For my live play, I track everything in a spreadsheet. But yes, you HAVE to write off your losing sessions if you are going to claim all of your winning ones (as you are supposed to). You're not supposzed to just say, "Yeah, I netted $10,000 last year playing poker" and try to pay taxes on that. You're supposed to declare your $160,000 in winning sessions and your $150,000 in losing sessions (I'm making up numbers, but you get the point). This ends up causing some problems for OTHER deductions you may have been able to take (because they are based on your Total Gross Income (BEFORE deductions), which is now grossly inflated), but I still don't think you should ever owe more in taxes on your poker winnings than the winnings themselves.
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10-09-06, 04:37 PM
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