Guy Smith, a semi-professional poker player has been found guilty of tax evasion and sentenced to 14 months in prison. Guy Smith, from Shelton, Connecticut, US, pleaded guilty to the charge and must report to prison on June 30.
$2,000,000 Undeclared
Guy Smith isn’t a well-known poker player by any stretch, but he’s going to be a lot better known after this week. His failure to declare $2 million in earnings—half of which came from gambling—has just landed him with a custodial sentence followed by two years of supervision.
Smith is the owner and operator of Centerline Interiors LLC, a company specialising in interior construction. According to a statement from the US Attorney’s Office he withdrew money from the business accounts and his personal accounts to use for playing poker and sports betting.
During the period 2012-2016 Smith furnished his tax preparer with the figures from his business without providing bank statements, intentionally hiding $1.1 million worth of income that was used to gamble with.
IRS Chasing Gambling Winnings
The IRS had also been in touch to remind Smith that he is required to report all of his gambling winnings on his federal tax returns but this was ignored. In total Smith is believed to have failed to pay taxes on more than $1 million in poker winnings.
For the period of note 63-year-old Smith failed to pay a total of $821,415 in federal income taxes. He will also have to pay penalties and accrued interest on top of that amount.
It is worth mentioning that during these years Smith’s live poker winnings from recorded events only amounted to $157,669. To account for the huge discrepancy with what the prosecutors are claiming, he must have been making a lot of money from illegal sports betting which was tracked through his PayPal account.
Prosecutors Out for Blood
Guy Smith must have seriously annoyed the government departments because they are still after more blood.
Prosecutors argued that Smith deserved a sentenced of 24 to 30 months due to extenuating circumstances. This seems to be the fact they repeatedly warned him to file his gambling accounts and this was ignored.
In a pre-sentence memo Smith attempted to counter the prosecutors argument saying that the amount owed was magnified because he was unable to offset any wins against losses.
The prosecutors were quick to dismiss this idea as understandable but not how things work in reality.
“The Government understands the argument, that as a gambler Smith should be allowed to net his winnings against his losses as a matter of course, however that is not the law.”
They also pointed out that Smith’s cheeky retort actually highlighted the fact he was involved in illegal sports betting and now wanted to claim some kind of benefit from that.
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