Swedish Online Poker Players Facing large tax penalties

11/22/2012 : SWEDISH TAX AUTHORITY SWOOPS ON ONLINE POKER PLAYERS
 
Facing large tax penalties for failing to declare all winnings
 
A Swedish multi-agency operation was reportedly carried out targeting online poker players resident in Sweden.
 
The operation conducted by the Swedish Tax Agency Skatteverket, Police and the Serious Fraud Office is understood to have identified numerous unnamed professional poker players behind online "handles" or aliases who had not declared profits, thought to total around 300 million Kronor, which were made from playing on gaming sites outside the Schengen Region such as PokerStars, Full Tilt Poker and Absolute Poker as reported by Expressen.se.
 
"We have collected data from online games and done a great job at identifying the people behind various nicknames," said Day Hardyson a tax auditor from Skatteverket, who assisted in tracking the players resulting in 12 people being subjected to home searches and the issue of 135 written demands to poker players.
 
"Just with the online game, it seems as if they think we can not find their incomes. Nothing could be more wrong than that. One cannot believe that you can get away with so much money," added Hardyson.