Spain Goes After Poker Player Taxes

According to a report at Poker-Red, some of Spain’s top poker players are currently being pursued by their government for past taxes. In Spain poker players are required to pay income tax on their past winnings and apparently the tax authorities have recently been searching through online poker tournament database Hendon Mob to ensure players’ declared earnings are the same as their results.
At present 2001 WSOP Main Event winner Carlos Mortensen tops Spain’s all time money list with a massive $10,811,436 in live tournament earnings. There are then several other players with cashes ranging from around one and a half to three-quarters of a million dollars each, including Raul Paez Corral, Juan Maceiras Lapido Jr, Dragan Kostic, Raul Mestre, Tomeu Gomila, Jesús Cortes and Leo Margets.
It would also seem just a matter of time before online poker players will be subjected to the same level of scrutiny. Originally when online regulation first came to Spain, online poker operators were less meticulous with their records and as PokerStars’ Steve Day stated at the time: “The data sent to our data vault in Spain is not summarized to provide per player gambling winnings but this information could be calculated from the data provided. We do not actively provide any information in respect to per player gambling winnings to the Spanish tax authorities.”
That situation has now changed, however, with both Spanish regulated sites, as well as the players themselves, expected to maintain precise records for tax purposes. This situation seems to be following a recent trend in Europe, as only last month Swedish poker players were targeted by tax authorities with many homes being raided across the country.