Russ Fox explains the minutiae of taxes and the WSOP

On the website taxabletalk.com, E.A., of Clayton Financial and Tax of Irvine, CA, Russ Fox took a look at how much of their earnings each November Niner will have to cough up in taxes. Since the field was made up of players from seven different countries, all with different tax designations for gambling winnings and treaties with the US, the amount players will forfeit to the IRS and similar agencies in their home countries varied from 0% (lucky stiffs) and over 40%.

In the article, Fox does an excellent job of explaining the different tax treaties and their effect on each player’s winnings, as well as how different countries treat gambling winnings in absolutely astoundingly different ways. The entire article is an interesting read, and even offers up some historical comparisons on how the Tax-Man benefits when poker players win big money!

Here is a look at how the November Nine fared in terms of taxes according to Russ Fox:

Interestingly, Sam Holden, and WSOP Champion Pius Heinz will owe $0 in taxes thanks to a 0% tax on gambling winnings in the UK and Germany, and tax treaties between the US and their home countries of Germany and the UK.

Epghan O’Dea, Martin Staszko, and Anton Makiievskyi will all pay $0 to the IRS thanks to tax treaties, but each will have to fork over a small amount of their winnings in their native countries: O’Dea taking the biggest hit as Ireland taxes all gambling winnings over €36,400 at a whopping 41%!

Bob Bounhara, who lives in Belize, will have to pay 35% to the IRs as Belize does not have a tax treaty with the US, but according to Russ Fox this should make him exempt from a further 15% when he gets back to Belize.

Ben Lamb and Matt Giannetti will both owe Uncle Sam 35% of their winnings while Collins (who was the only married player at the table) will owe in the neighborhood of 38%.

So, not only did Pius Heinz win the WSOP, but he also won the tax lottery, considering that if an American had won the $8+ million first-place prize they would only receive about $5.4 million of it! And if you live in a state like Massachusetts you could take another 5.3% off of that number.