At home I want to play in the tournaments at Seneca Casino in Niagara Falls NY but they hold back 30% from all winnings. They have a bounty tournament that pay's $25 for a bounty and they even take 30% off that. Needless to say I don't partake in these tournaments especially when I can sit at the cash game and no matter what I cash out for there is no withholding tax. They tell me its a federal law but when I was in Vegas over Christmas I played tournaments at the Mirage and they never withheld anything. I am just curious what your home base poker room's policy is?
That probably falls under the recent discussion where Indian casinos require 2 forms of ID. https://www.vegasmessageboard.com/forums/showthread.php?t=91695 Just speculating here, but it sounds like the IRS may have put more emphasis on the Indian casinos reporting taxable jackpots and Seneca is over doing it. If they are NOT giving you a form showing that the taxes were taken out of the winnings, they need to be reported to the IRS.
I've never read, heard of or seen anything remotely resembling these tax or ID requirements at local Illinois/Indiana casinos, and also at any Nevada tournament / casino. A drivers license is the extent of what I have produced for my jackpot won in Vegas, or for any race track ticket requiring a W-2G. I've split a few thousand in Vegas Poker tournaments and there were no tax consequences / forms. What I've learned from these two threads is this - the odds of my returning to a "Tribal" casino for the first time in two decades are Zero & Less than Zero. [YOUTUBE]T-hZhr2k2hk[/YOUTUBE] [YOUTUBE]MHQK3yo9CBA[/YOUTUBE]
I believe if you win over $5000 in a poker tournament (payout minus your buyin), they will issue tax forms and withhold tax. The few tournaments I've been lucky enough to make it to the final table, we purposefully negotiated chops to keep us under the $5000 limit...e.g. chipleader gets $4900, everyone else gets $4500 and 4000, or something like that.
As above. Start witholding once the 5k limit is reached. not sure if they withhold 30 per cent over 5k or 30 per cent on the whole lot. Never been in that position!! Over here in England we have a tax agreement and have to get a tax number if we win big so we dont lose the 30 per cent. Heard bad reports of the Golden Nugget not helping with the form during their grand Series last year, although the Rio and Venetian fill the forms in for you.
Caesars also good too for the paperwork. If you have a Brit or a tax exempt person on your table, it would be well worth while doing a deal for the final spots.
It should be noted that it's a cumulative $5,000 in a year that counts (though not sure if that applies only to individual casinos or all casinos within the company chain). For example, if you won $4,000 in one tournament and $2,000 in another one at the same place in the same year you will likely get a W-2G on the winnings.
