Greek players are trying to trick the system by maneuvering with tournament entries in order not to exceed the daily tax free limit in profits. The technique used by the players earned the witty name Taxes Hold’em.
PokerStars (and Full Tilt Poker) have launched their legal online poker room in Greece last week. Players of the .gr site are able to play against the .com pool but have to pay their taxes after their profits on a daily basis. The Player Withholding Tax (PWT) means that winnings of €100 or less are tax free, profits between €100 and €500 are subject to a 15% tax and players pay 20% after winnings of over €500. Of course, the room still deducts rake and losses are apparently (although not confirmedly) not deducted from the amounts won; they are likely to simply fall into the €100 or less category.
The PWT is endangering the primary source of income of a number of Greek players and even PokerStars seems to encourage them to find ways to minimize their losses.
“We want to minimize the possibility that a Greek player will incur a large tax liability by winning a big tournament without realizing that they will need to pay the tax. It will take time for the Greek poker community as a whole to fully understand the rules and how best to deal with them,” Steve ‘PokerStars Steve’ Day posted in the 2+2 forum.
Due to public outrage from Greek players unaware of the changes, PokerStars has hidden multi-table tournaments and Sit n’ Gos of over $7 in buy-in from the .gr site lobby. ‘PokerStars Steve’ additionally posted some answers to players’ questions regarding the PWT. He also gave out tips to decrease daily winnings so that they are not taxed without actually losing money.
Question: “If I win several hundred dollars in cash games in a day, but then use all of the profits except for $100 to register for tournaments in the future, will I incur tax for that day?”
Answer: “As long as you are still registered for those tournaments at the end of the day (i.e. before 7am Greek time), no, you won’t. Tournament entries and fees are debited from your winnings when calculating daily profit.”
In practice, this means that if a player buys in on Monday to a tournament on Tuesday, using his daily profits, and they resign from it before the event starts, the amount refunded to their account will be considered a profit of Tuesday. If their total winnings exceed the tax-free limit that day as well, another buy-in can solve the problem, and so on. Maneuvering with tournament buy-ins this way allows Greek players to achieve €36,500 in legal, tax-free annual income.
The winning Greek players’ struggle with the tax system has earned the witty name “Taxes Hold’em.”
”We recognize that this is a very poorly structured tax for poker and that it has devastating consequences for many players in Greece. We continue to work very proactively to educate the relevant authorities on why this tax is so harmful for players, authorities and indeed governments. We are pushing strongly for change,” ‘PokerStars Steve’ admitted.
