US Players and Taxes, a How-To Guide
The end of the year is quickly coming and it'll be time to start figuring finances for 2007. This year, unlike last, I'm going to make an effort to have all my 07 taxes done in January 2008 as to avoid a bankroll hit and just have it done with. So in preparation for that I decided to make a guide detailing the best way to get a tally of each day's wins and losses so you can use it to help file your taxes. I strongly suggest you hire a CPA or knowledgeable tax professional to help you prepare your taxes.
This guide assumes that you're paying taxes on your poker tracker recorded cash game winnings. If you're like me, you use PT to track all of your +'s and -'s. For US players, we have to tally our + and - by session, and for tax purposes we're assuming in this guide that 1 session is 1 day of playing. This guide will help you export your wins and losses to a text file for easy record keeping and tracking and so you can put a hard copy with your taxes in case of an audit.
The first step is to download and install ActivePerl, a free perl interpreter that will allow you to run perl scripts on your machine. You can download active perl here: Download ActivePerl
Create a directory to be used in this guide, such as c:\pokertax
The next step is to download the perl script that does the dirty work. You can get it on my site at this address: http://www.plusevpoker.com/sessioncalc.pl (right-click, save as)
Put the script in the c:\pokertax directory.
Next, you need to export your PT sessions into .csv files. You can do this by opening your database, go to "ring player statistics", click the "Session Notes" tab, then click the little blue "p" button.
This brings up a window that allows you to print your sessions.
After you click the blue "p", click the "Export..." button to see the screen below:
Choose "Comma Separated" as the file type. This will export a .csv file that the perl script will read. Click the "Browse..." button and navigate to the c:\pokertax directory. Give the file a name such as "sessions.csv". Now click the "Export" button. You should get a message saying the export was successful.
Now go to the start button, click run, and type in cmd.exe --This will bring up a command prompt.
type: cd c:\pokertax (and hit enter)
type dir (press enter)
You should see your .csv file that you exported and you should see the sessioncalc.pl file you downloaded from plusevpoker.com. If you don't see those files, retrace your steps above.
now, to run the command you should type: sessioncalc.pl -v sessions.csv > sessions.txt
This command tells the perl script to look at your exported .csv file and tally up the wins and losses for each day and saving the result in the sessions.txt file.
Now when figuring your taxes you can refer to this sessions.txt file for your total wins and losses.
Note, if you have multiple databases for your play this year, you'll need to export the sessions.csv for each database and run this sessioncalc.pl on each .csv file you export. So for example, I keep a different database for each month of the year so when I export the csv file i'll export january's sessions into a file called jan07.csv then when I run the command i'll put the output into the jan07.txt. So the command looks like this: sessioncalc.pl -v jan07.csv > jan07.txt. Then to see what I made for the year, I'll have to add up the net from each of the months. If you have just 1 database for the entire year then you'll only have to do this process once.
Hope this helps,
Aaron
This guide assumes that you're paying taxes on your poker tracker recorded cash game winnings. If you're like me, you use PT to track all of your +'s and -'s. For US players, we have to tally our + and - by session, and for tax purposes we're assuming in this guide that 1 session is 1 day of playing. This guide will help you export your wins and losses to a text file for easy record keeping and tracking and so you can put a hard copy with your taxes in case of an audit.
The first step is to download and install ActivePerl, a free perl interpreter that will allow you to run perl scripts on your machine. You can download active perl here: Download ActivePerl
Create a directory to be used in this guide, such as c:\pokertax
The next step is to download the perl script that does the dirty work. You can get it on my site at this address: http://www.plusevpoker.com/sessioncalc.pl (right-click, save as)
Put the script in the c:\pokertax directory.
Next, you need to export your PT sessions into .csv files. You can do this by opening your database, go to "ring player statistics", click the "Session Notes" tab, then click the little blue "p" button.
This brings up a window that allows you to print your sessions.
After you click the blue "p", click the "Export..." button to see the screen below:
Choose "Comma Separated" as the file type. This will export a .csv file that the perl script will read. Click the "Browse..." button and navigate to the c:\pokertax directory. Give the file a name such as "sessions.csv". Now click the "Export" button. You should get a message saying the export was successful.
Now go to the start button, click run, and type in cmd.exe --This will bring up a command prompt.
type: cd c:\pokertax (and hit enter)
type dir (press enter)
You should see your .csv file that you exported and you should see the sessioncalc.pl file you downloaded from plusevpoker.com. If you don't see those files, retrace your steps above.
now, to run the command you should type: sessioncalc.pl -v sessions.csv > sessions.txt
This command tells the perl script to look at your exported .csv file and tally up the wins and losses for each day and saving the result in the sessions.txt file.
Now when figuring your taxes you can refer to this sessions.txt file for your total wins and losses.
Note, if you have multiple databases for your play this year, you'll need to export the sessions.csv for each database and run this sessioncalc.pl on each .csv file you export. So for example, I keep a different database for each month of the year so when I export the csv file i'll export january's sessions into a file called jan07.csv then when I run the command i'll put the output into the jan07.txt. So the command looks like this: sessioncalc.pl -v jan07.csv > jan07.txt. Then to see what I made for the year, I'll have to add up the net from each of the months. If you have just 1 database for the entire year then you'll only have to do this process once.
Hope this helps,
Aaron
posted by WiltOnTilt at 5:16 AM
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