Income tax and "gambling" profits

debbie42

I don't currently have any income, and have registered my savings accounts for gross interest. I have recently been taking advantage of bookies signups/matched betting, and am making a fairly respectable profit.

My understanding is that I don't have to pay tax on any gambling profits, but I'm wondering how it may affect my status regarding gross interest on savings?

Thanks,

Debbie

bargains83

debbie42 wrote:

I don't currently have any income, and have registered my savings accounts for gross interest. I have recently been taking advantage of bookies signups/matched betting, and am making a fairly respectable profit.

My understanding is that I don't have to pay tax on any gambling profits, but I'm wondering how it may affect my status regarding gross interest on savings?

Thanks,

Debbie

Profits for gambling are non-taxable for income tax providing that you aren't profiting from providing 'service' to anyone. I.E Television/Public apperances where you are gambling for other peoples entertainment. I sought advice from the Inland Revenue as I was concerned about what tax implications there might be with this.

One bit of advice I would give is to keep all bank/credit card statements with gambling transactions on if you are doing this as your main source of income, since not paying any NI contributions or Income tax may lead the IRS to suspect that something dodgy is going on if hefty sums of money are going back and forth from bank accounts with no tax being paid as you may be liable to investigation.

You may also want to consider paying volountary NICs as you will be missing out on the credits you need towards a state pension.

With regards to the interest on savings, if this is your only taxable income and you have registered to recieve it gross. You are probably more liable to be investigated by the IRS, but as long as you have evidence of your savings coming from non-taxible gambling income (bank statements) I think you should be ok.