Rake As A Tax Write Off?

[A_Bullets_A 0]

If we're doing our income tax report as a professional poker player we can obviously then write off various business expenses for our job. I've heard of people claiming write offs for all kinds of things so why not the rake? People claim the expense of an internet connection as a write off. The internet is required to play poker online so we pay the internet company to provide us with that service. The online poker sites provide us with the service of creating a player pool and running games for us to join. This service is required for our job as well and we pay them for it through the rake. Seems to me that both of these are expenses necessary for our business. I haven't seen any information about anyone actually trying to do this. Does anyone have any idea if this is actually possible to claim as a write off?

[FCP Bob 1,312]

When a poker player talks about the money that they've won the rake they paid has already been netted out and in order for a poker player who is paying taxes to use the rake as a deduction they would have to add it back in.Assume that player won $50,000 and paid $10,000 in rake. The actual amount they won was $60,000 before rake so they would need to change the profit amount to $60,000 if they were then going to use the rake as a deduction.

[A_Bullets_A 0]

Oh, right. I never took that into consideration. Way to ruin my argument with all that logical thinking, Bob. LOL.What about not paying taxes on it at all? I'm in Canada so there's no tax on gambling winnings. Maybe I just don't have a job anymore because I've been living off my lucky gambling wins. From what I've read, You're only supposed to pay tax on earnings as a "gambling business" if there's a "reasonable expectation of profit". Betting and cash prizes are allowed for skill based games. For example, a bowling tournament where players' entry fees are put into a cash prize pool to pay the winners. This kind of betting is allowed because bowling (golf, chess, etc.) is a skill based game. On the other hand, it's illegal to run poker tournaments in bars, card clubs, or home games. Those places have cops come and shut down the games because it's illegal to gamble on luck based games outside of a casino. This means the law in Canada has deemed that poker is a luck based game of chance. If this is true, then there is no possible way to have a reasonable expectation of profit.

[FCP Bob 1,312]

I think you've been confused by by some bad information.Whether something is legal or illegal doesn't matter when it comes to whether you have to pay taxes or not. The taxman expects drug dealers to pay tax on their drug business. That of course doesn't happen but it can add tax related charges as well to them.In order to pay taxes in Canada you have to be considered to be carrying on a gambling business and just because you've been winning a little bit at poker doesn't mean that's the case. Every individual situation is different but there are very few poker players in Canada subject to paying tax on their poker winnings.If you're really concerned that you should be paying taxes contact a local tax accountant for advise.Also playing poker isn't illegal. You can run a poker tournament out of your house if you want to as long as you don't charge anything for example.