Using PokerTracker for Taxes...

[Talking Poker]

pshabi (or anyone else) - Did you ever figure out how to add up all your winning session and all your losing sessions to get IRS friendly totals, by using Poker Tracker for a selected date range?

[PShabi]

No, I haven't yet. I was thinking of tackling that this weekend. I'll be claiming each day as a seperate "session." I can't imagine manually going through each day, that would suck. With PT, there's usually a way to do anything.

A search at the PT forums may help.

[Talking Poker]

You'll be claiming each "day" as a session, or each "session" as a session? PT should allow us to do it either way, and I'm guessing the IRS would prefer the latter.

I'm a bit nervous about doing it this way, because I am realizing this could be a major boost to my total income (and my total deductions of course), which could put me in a higher tax bracket which could suck for the rest of my income... if that is indeed how it works. If the tax bracket is determined AFTER the gambling loss deducion, that it will wash out and won't matter. But I'm not sure about that. Something you wrote in the other tax thread got me wondering.

[PShabi]

Bro, I switch tables 10 times in a session sometimes. No way in hell I'm claiming every table change as a new session. If you were at a B&M and had a table change, that wouldn't start/end a new session. Similarly, if you went to a B&M played 5 hours, took a "meal break" and came back, I wouldn't think you would say that is a "new session."

I've done a lot of reading, coming from players making much more money than I do. A majority (maybe even all) of the players are defining the session as "one day."

Unfortunately, the bracket is determined before the deductions. It sucks and it's ridiculously unfair.

[Talking Poker]

Damn.... that could end up costing me a LOT.

Ok, if a session is one day, great..... Find me some sort of PT query I can run to come up with THOSE total win and loss numbers.

[jaeh00d]

where is it you guys download or buy this program? this is allowed by the the stars and party poker? i'm sure i'm getting it confused with some other program mentioned here through the threads.

[Talking Poker]

See banner link at the bottom of every page of this site.

I'm a big fan, in case you couldn't tell. This is a must have piece of software for any serious online player.

[jaeh00d]

sorry to be such a bother with shit like this i continue to miss the obvuious. Never bothered to look on the bottom there and see it. thanks

[PShabi]

Yeah, you could be a net loser and still end up paying more to the gov't because you're a poker player. It's so ass backward, it's funny.

I've never dealt with the IRS, but if you were audited, I think they'd be satisfied with the itnent to honestly report the winnings. If you're trying to hid shit, you're in trouble. But if you are making an attempt to interpret the law and be honest, they aren't going to drop the hammer because of a minor discrepancy.

Either way, I don't understand why this law would ever be put into effect. It makes no sense and may have been created by some bible thumper hell bent on converting evil gamblers.

It should be net profit reported as income, period.

[Robbie Robb]

Okay, I've been playing around with this to see if I could figure out a way (an EASY way) to report a daily gross win and a daily gross loss. (that is what you're looking for right???)

I don't know that there is an easy way. You could pull a daily report and then setup a filter to show you the hands won @ showdown, toss that number in a spreadsheet, then filter for hands won without showdown, through that number into the spreadsheet then subtract your net win from the sum of those two and you have your gross losses. Not easy. Very time consuming.

Then, lying in bed last night, I think I figured out the easiest way for someone to do it. It would be necessary to whip up some short vb code for excel that accesses (pardon the pun) the PT database (since it's in Access format) and pull out the information you need for each day. It would be able to automate the ENTIRE process.

I haven't actually done the math but I'm assuming that it will work out so that the NetWin=GrossWin-GrossLoss-BuyIn.

Yeah, that's gonna screw a LOT of people since GrossWin will include your own money. Won't it? As an example: if you win a 3-way pot worth $1500 isn't $500 of that already your own money? Yet it's still going to show up in the win for the hand. Over and over again.

Oh man...I'm confused now...too early...

EDIT: Okay, I fired up PT to take a look at the ring hands. Hallelujah! PT actually lists your NET win for each hand! That makes it easier. So basically what you'd need to do is read in the NetWin for each hand on a given day. Green add it to Win counter, red add it to loss counter. At end of hands create a row in excel with date, win, loss, and maybe for good measure, number of hands played. There ya go! Quick and dirty pseudo-code!

[Talking Poker]

I understand how to do it manually - but no way am I considering each HAND a session. Ah, I see - you are then saying to add up all the nets for a Day and then determine where it goes.

That would work, but that's way too much manaual work, again. There needs to be a way to automate that (ideally, within PT), so with the press of a button, you can have your tax-friendly results.

If no one knows a way to do this, I'll contact the PT guys myself and see what they say.

[Robbie Robb]

definitely talk to them. it should be very easy to code into PT itself. Otherwise, the ONLY other way I can think of to automate it is some Excel VB magic that mines the access database automatically and puts each day in a separate row in an Excel spreadsheet.

[Talking Poker]

I just dug through the PT forums (tired of waiting for pshabi to do this for me), and found some interesting threads I will link to directly.

MOST of the threads are people requesting this exact feature, so:
A) it's not there yet
and
B) They are aware that people want it (Assuming they read their own forums).

Seems there is going to be a big difference in the numbers, depending on how a "session" is defined. Damn the IRS for their goofy outdated laws.

Some threads worth looking at...

1. This guy grossed 3k.... you know, 123k win and 120k loss:


That blew his gross income through the roof, moving him up quite in bit in the tax brackets. I still don't think this can be right, and need to look into it more.

2. A useful looking SQL query:


3. A perl script posts on 2+2 with some more discussion:


4. And of course, as per the IRS:


5. More discussion, including interpretation of the IRS's pain in the ass requirements:


What a freaking mess. The thing that gets me is I'll bet 90%+ of online players don't report ANYTHING.... and meanwhile, the guys who do try to be honest not only get screwed financially, but also have to deal with all this crap and potentially more headaches from the IRS.

[MAYHEM45]

Actually PT uses PostgresSQL (or has the option to convert your Access) databases for its hand storage now. That said, I would look up some info on basic queries. Coding one to look for this data should do the trick.

EDIT: I love posting while someone else is typing up a much more useful post at the same time.

NH TP.

[Talking Poker]

ty. Now if only I could figure out how to use everything I linked to in order to get the numbers I need for my taxes.

[badblood44]

Have you sought any advice from a professional tax preparer? Quite honestly, I went to one years ago, and paid $150 for his help. He showed me things that have saved me more than that fee several times over.

This may be one of those instances.

I'm not suggesting you be totally dishonest, but why screw yourself over?

[Talking Poker]

I talked to my accountant about this a few times last year, and wasn't really happy with what he had to say (not so much his recommendations, but more so his lack of knowledge in the area). So I found a new accountant. She's vvery willing to figure out what's best and gave me some pretty solid advice. She thinks PT on top of the records I have now would make for excellent backup.

My own personal records are gold as far as all tourneys are concerned - MTT, SNG, and even HU. Now it's just a question of getting PT to do what I want it to do to take care of the cash games.

[SirFWALGMan]

If anyone needs some help making a query to do the math I have been in IT for over 13 years and have some skillz in Access (which is the DB they used to use), and Postgress. Also I could import the data into my own Access DB for reporting only.. I know all the data is there to slice up anyway you want. Just ask and we can work something out.

[Talking Poker]

If you want to whip something up and post it (along with instructions for how we can use it), I'm sure there are a number of people that would appreciate it.

Basically, what I'm looking for is something that will run through ALL of my cash game sessions (all games, all limits) and tally they up to figure out my net for every day of the year. Then, I want to add up all the positive days and all the negative days to come up with two separate numbers. And that's it.

[PShabi]

Yes. I would appreciate this very much. TP promises a hand job.

[SirFWALGMan]

Nice. I think TP should give me a Tourney Chip.. and I will even give him 10% of what I win, lol.

[Talking Poker]

So, any progress with this?

I need to come up with something somewhat soon-ish.

[SirFWALGMan]

I forgot. I will put something up tonight.

[Talking Poker]

Thanks - very looking forward to it.

[PShabi]

Although I have no clue what to do with these "queries." Also, it may be a total pain in the ass if you have 50 different sites on your database with multiple aliases.