Help!! Funds Transfer

PC Toronto · Jan 25,2005, 04:29 PM

OkayQuick question with a complex answer
I live In canada as many of you know

And... I was wondering what the implications are for making a large withdrawal from a poker site into your bank account.

For example tax and legal implications.

What does the bank and government of Canada have to say or what do you tell them?

Any advice would be helpful.

Thanks!

Soup66 · Jan 25,2005, 05:35 PM

I'm do not know alot about fund transfers straight from the site into your account, as I use neteller to make the transfers.

For the tax questions, there is a good thread at http://pokerforum.ca/forum/showthread.php?t=2584

all_aces · Jan 25,2005, 06:17 PM

The bank teller will give you a funny look the first few times. If you do any 30K plus deposits of USD funds into your Canadian bank account the bank manager will then come out and give you a funny look as well. Then they will direct you to their financial advisors who will recommend how/when to do the currency exchange, whether or not to put it into GIC's, RRSP's, etc.... There will be a 28-business-day hold on your first few 'large' USD deposits into your bank, but after the first few cheques clear they will remove the hold.

Nobody at the bank ever asked me where the money was coming from, FWIW. There are online day-traders, etc... who probably routinely make these kinds of deposits.

As for the government, the answer to your question varies greatly from person to person, so they are the ones you should be asking about tax implications.

Tigerscott · Jan 26,2005, 01:59 PM

Not positive but believe someone once told me that if poker was your main source of income in canada you must claim it on your taxes..

Now if you make 30k a year at job and 29k at poker you should be ok but if you make say 50k at poker then you might wanna check into it more

all_aces · Jan 26,2005, 02:08 PM

It's not that cut and dry. Although, if you have a 'real' job, and you can afford to pay all of your bills, buy a car, etc.... with income from that 'real' job, they are not likely to tax you on poker winnings. This may even be true even if your poker winnings/year exceeds your annual income from your real job.

So, there are no hard and fast rules like 'if you make 30K a year at job and 29K at poker you should be ok'. I used to think that, too, and I might have posted something like that myself a long time ago. In actual fact, what it comes down to is whether or not the government decides that poker is a business for you. It doesn't have to be your only business, but is it, in fact, a business. There are a lot of factors that go into them determining whether or not this is the case, and there have been some excellent threads on this forum that go into some of those factors. However, your last advice is your best advice, Tigerscott, IMO:

Quote:

you might wanna check into it more

... with a professional tax lawyer/accountant.