Some problems with Mr Last's article:

* assumes athletes are in the top tax bracket

* assumes that the travel and lodging costs of attending the Olympics are not tax deductible against the income

* the whole issue of taxation of overseas income is irrelevant in this case. In most countries of the world, residents are taxed on all their income, regardless of where it is earned. The US is different because it taxes non-residents and also in how it taxes corporations overseas income. However, the athletes are residents and not corporations so this whole issue doesn't apply.

In any event, why shouldn't income be taxed, regardless of whether it is salary, dividends, interest, capital gains, or prizes?

Some of the athletes(especially the medal winners) will in fact earn substantial incomes . Think NBA players or paid sponsorships. That will be a problem for their accountants. Of course, as an advocate of a flat tax, I am not over fond of our current system.

Rubio bill eliminates federal tax on Olympic medals . . .

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/aug/1/rubio-bill-eliminates-federal-tax-olympic-medals/

Snoopy's rocking this blog with some clear-headed stuff today.

Actually, many of the athletes who earn medals will never see a dime from endorsements or from doing their respective sport at a professional level. Ever hear of Megan Kalmoe? I'm betting you havent. She won a bronze medal in rowing yesterday. She will not be on a Wheaties box or schilling for Nike. She also won't get paid millions for rowing professionally. She worked hard to earn that medal, and she should get to keep her prize money.

Oh, wait! Duh! We live in the USA. The land where we penalize people for being responsible and succeeding. Silly me!

Um, why wouldn't their winnings be taxed? I mean the world's best actors, doctors, teachers, lawyers, accountants, janitors, songwriters, every other profession gets taxed. Why would you treat atheletes differently?

Income is income.

I'm in favor of their not paying taxes on any income they earn on the day I don't have to pay taxes on any income I earn.

Oh wow... coming from you Crid, that means a lot... Thanks!

Um, why wouldn't their winnings be taxed? I mean the world's best actors, doctors, teachers, lawyers, accountants, janitors, songwriters, every other profession gets taxed. Why would you treat athletes differently? -- NicoleK at August 1, 2012 4:32 PM

Because they technically aren't professionals. If they are professionals that means they get to deduct every penny for travel, training, uniforms, drug testing, gym fees, etc. that got them to the Olympics. That would also apply to every person who went to test out for the Olympic trials. And don't forget that would count toward every pellet and bullet in the competition with Amanda Furrer to actually go.

If you can agree with that then the IRS should get a cut of the prize money.

Somehow I don't think the prospective Olympians get those deductions. And if they did, I suspect that the $25K in deductions would easily overwhelm the prize money.

Why are we the only country that does this?

A couple of problems here:
First, the linked articles seem to imply that there is a special Olympics tax, not just the regular tax that anyone would pay on that sort of income.

But mostly, there are several obvious questions that go unanswered about this:
Are training expenses deductible? How much are these athletes making otherwise? Some (Basketball players, Phelps) are millionaires. Others are probably students that make no money, and would thus be out of the higher tax bracket, except that winning a medal helps you get the endorsements, so...

But yeah, what Snoopy said.

Plus, again, the issue of wages earned overseas is irrelevant. The money the athletes get for medals comes from the US Olympic committee, so its as if you worked for a US company that sent you to Montreal for a couple of weeks, it doesn't seem excessive that you would pay US taxes.

Off topic question: I don't follow sports, but what's with this statement: "That is, unless she has to decline the prize money to placate the NCAA--the only organization in America whose nuttiness rivals the IRS..."

Why would a high schooler have to forfeit their prize money to placate a College Athletics group? And why would they even ask her to?

These people are in such a convoluted circumstance... Pro/Semi/Am sports are an insane weave of private interests and public support. I'm pretty much certain that everyone in the Olympics, from America and elsewhere, has received more support from my tax money and my government machinery than they deserve to receive. This certainly includes the athletes, who will not be lending me their medals to wear to cocktail parties. So, essentially...

Fuck 'em.

If you don't want to deal with the complexities of these rules, or with their specific strictures, then don't. Run around your neighborhood parks as fast as you can, then go home and eat lunch. Play ping-pong with your friends in the basement instead of arenas full of idiot journalists.

So you believe young kids 16, 17 years old should be paying taxes on their winnings and medals?

I disagree. I think it's a shameful system - I don't care how badly you want to judge their positions in life or their choice to go to this (stupid) athletic event.

It's either just or unjust - I think it is unjust.

What other country does this? Yet we are the beacon of freedom? So this means the more medals you get (and the more first place winnings you receive) the more you get charged?

Sound familiar?

Look. It's either immoral or it's not.

More later.

"If they are professionals that means they get to deduct every penny for travel, training, uniforms, drug testing, gym fees, etc. that got them to the Olympics"

- Even if they are just hobbyists, they'd be able to deduct these expenses against their winnings. You don't need to be a "professional" to do so.

"So you believe young kids 16, 17 years old should be paying taxes on their winnings and medals?"

- young kids (younger than 16 or 17 even!) pay taxes all the time on income they earn as actors or passive investors in family investments. I see no reason why Olympic winnings should be treated differently than if I, say, won a bracelet at the WSOP.

Take of the Olympic-Goggles and you will see these winnings as ordinary income, in every sense of the word "ordinary."

So government employees get away with billions, FUCKING BILLIONS in unpaid and unfiled taxes and we go after people's Olympic winnings?

Why are we the only country that does this?

I don't care about the Olympics - no goggles here (Okay, gymnastics only). It's ridiculous.

And you do know you get charged a higher tax rate for "bonus' and prizes" right? So the bottom income bracket doesn't apply here. Same with lotto or big fancy cars from gameshows. You are taxed higher.

I think it's complete bullshit.

Did anyone confirm if these athletes can expense their travel expenses and hotels.

Horseshit.

Meanwhile, classic Cintra.

What happened to my post dammit! It was masterful. I've never been so proud!

I had something to say dammit!

:-).

I'll try again later. It was important!!!!!

Prizes are taxed as regular income. There is no special tax rate for Olympic winnings. (Google "u.s. income tax for prizes.")

And people should understand how marginal tax rates work. No one pays 35% of their entire income. They only pay 35% on income above $388,000. Warren Buffet pays only 10% on the first $8,700 he makes in a year. The rates increase on additional money you earn, %15 on income from from $8,700 to $35,000, etc.

So LeBron James pays the full 35% on his medal winnings. The 14-year old Kayaking bronze medalist, who has no other income, probably pays no taxes after deductions.

Olympic sports, y'know?

> Look. It's either immoral or it's not.

I think it doesn't have to be either moral or immoral. But also, it isn't immoral. It isn't even unholy.

> So you believe young kids 16, 17 years old
> should be paying taxes on their winnings and
> medals?

Why not? They pay taxes for their paper routes and other wages (we presume), so why not for this? There's nothing immoral about taxing them. The achievements these people seek are intensely personal, and are very largely enabled by sacrifices of their communities and nations. And a lot of these sports are just specialty weirdness. There are plenty of kids who are going to work at lot harder than any of these athletes, are going to get a lot less support from their families, government or anyone else, aren't going to be paid as well, and will still have their butts taxes off.

Year after year (for you; decade after decade for me) we read that the Olympics are boondoggle for their hosting cities, with the IOC charging impoverished nations millions of dollars just to apply. And if they win? A handful of world capitals have the infrastructure, physical and political, to welcome these events without burdening the community with outlandish infrastructure.

A lot of other nations don't have supportive government worth taxing people for. I'd presume that in many, the athletes are merely children of the rich plantation owner in the valley or the nephew of the Village Big Man... The one teenager in the country who actually owns a television and knows what the Olympics are about, at least on showbiz terms.

But it's a just grease; it's nothing but a wickedly expensive way to produce reality television.

What exactly is it we seek in inculcate in these kids if not the understanding that even with competitive success, you have responsibilities to the surrounding community?

The athletes, Teh Gays, the unions, the bankers... Everyone seems to have SOMEONE who they think shouldn't have to pay taxes.

And yet our indebtedness continues to explode!

I don't understanding it.

@Amy. Thank you - the feeling is mutual (first post).

Second post, thank you for looking. My iPhone apperantly swallowed that post up whole. :-)

Now, where was I?

Crid, rarely do I disagree with you -but, my dear sweet man....

"The achievements these people seek are intensely personal, and are very largely enabled by sacrifices of their communities and nations."

So they didn't build it themselves, eh? It was because of someone else that they got their medal? Crid, I truly can't BELIEVE you just said this.

"There are plenty of kids who are going to work at lot harder than any of these athletes, are going to get a lot less support from their families, government or anyone else, aren't going to be paid as well, and will still have their butts taxes off."

So in other words, it's not "fair". Since they will be rich, and they had the talent - they are expected to pay more? Their communities? How about their PARENTS!!! THIS is material dialectics - THIS is bullshit. THIS is without principle.

I don't think ANYONE should have their asses taxed off PERIOD. Or everyone should be taxed equitably...but that aint our system now is it?

Fuck you, to all the Harrison Bergerons of our nation - zzzzzztttt-zzzzzttt!!!! What was I saying? Oh ya...

"The athletes, Teh Gays, the unions, the bankers... Everyone seems to have SOMEONE who they think shouldn't have to pay taxes."

As if including Athletes in this list makes them the SAME? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ueZ6tvqhk8U

When these "groups" (gays, unions, bankers) are claiming (or in the case of bankers, they don't need to claim - because they already have money and political power) their group status, they are given access to political privileges and inherent advantages over others in exchange for their support and their votes.

One of those unwritten quid pro quo arrangements is to be wildly supportive of policies supporting our current tax policy...or statism, collectivism - whatever.

These groups support a system that picks and chooses who will be taken to the cleaners and who will be overlooked during tax audits. What type of political clout do believe athletes have? What portion of any income they earn is even remotely similar to a quid pro quo arrangement that bankers, unions and now recently gays have in the political system that enforces tax collection?

That is just so unbelievably fucking insane.

But we get it -you hate little girls in pig tails and leotards. You think they are being exploited - so you just want to tax the SHIT out of them to prove your point? How the hell does this shit make any sense? (I am joking here, but only a little)

AGAIN!!!! WHY ARE WE THE ONLY COUNTRY THAT TAXES OUR MEDALISTS?

"Year after year (for you; decade after decade for me) we read that the Olympics are boondoggle for their hosting cities, with the IOC charging impoverished nations millions of dollars just to apply"

Why is that our (or anyone elses personally taxable) fucking problem? These impoverished countries should wisen up, eh? WHo held a gun to their head to offer up their country as host?

PS.

I loved gymnastics...and on my 35th birthday I figured out I could still do a round off back handspring....it was so good, Bela Karolyi himself would have wept.

And for the record, when I was training two hours a day and five days a week (10 years old) in gymnastics I would come home and eat six chicken breasts - so much for an eating disorder.

Not everyone has been exploited by this sport.

I didn't say everyone had been exploited by the sport, I said these kids don't deserve tax breaks. They can flop all over the velodrome in coxless pairs if they want, it's got nothing to do with me.

> So they didn't build it themselves, eh?

Feeberz, they didn't "build" anything. They consumed a bunch of public resources and enabled a bunch of TV producers, building contractors, and mafiosi is quasi-public enterprises to rape the public infrastructure. Yes, absolutely: IF THE REASON THE BUSINESS OWNERS OF AMERICA WERE ANGERED BY OBAMA'S ROANOAKE COMMENTS WAS BECAUSE THEY WERE TRYING TO AVOID TAXES, then I'd side with the Democrats.

But that's not how it went down, is it?

They were working ONLY for their own interests. They took wealth from others, wealth that was going to be taken by someone anyway; they didn't create it.

And on a personal level, their achievement is difficult for me to admire. When I was a kid, I loved pop music. I was born in nearly the same hour and nearly the same place as Micheal Jackson, who sold millions of records before he was out of grade school. And from then on, I'd read story after story of pop music 'artists' who'd been screwed out of their 'earnings' by record company sharks, tragic tales all.

One day it dawned on me: The reason these people are always getting screwed (year after year, decade after decade, by an industry for which the biggest players are shamelessly registered on the New York Stock exchange) is that they deserve to be. Their contribution to this roiling, insanely profitable industry is petty and unremarkable: Mostly, they have good, photogenic complexions and high cheekbones. Some of them can carry a tune. (Very few can write one.)

Michael Jackson did have a remarkable (if feminine) voice... Solid pitch, diction to die for. But most of the magic was in his supporting infrastructure, human and otherwise; For example the bass player who used an adult lifetime of skill to create this.

More later. I'm afraid Snake described the truth when he talked about "Olympic goggles." Amy wears "Gay Goggles."

I'm gonna go to Chick-Fil-A and kiss a guy. (We had one in L.A. that got vandalized this morning; if there's something ugly going on, I wanna see it.)

What public resources? I went to a private gym and hired private coaches (well, we cleaned the gym in trade until it got too expensive).... So exactly what public resources are you speaking of?

RE: Chick Fil-A

Don't hurt yourself....

> What public resources? I went to a private gym
> and hired private coaches

Right! And as I understand it, you're NOT expecting a tax exemption.

____________


Chick Fil A had a crowd of sign-shaking screamers at the corner in front of the countertop that faces the street. They were Christians... Holy-roller types, but mostly black and Korean. (I know, right?) There was a crowd of maybe 20 or 25 people. I walked around and saw that there were a few gay-rights types in there too, waving signs with (essentially incoherent) themes of "intolerance." Everyone was getting along pretty well. They were shouting beside each other, not at each other, but none of their chants were getting any traction.

CFA had hired a security guard, a slender, good-lookin', not-intimidating black kid with a great haircut and lots of Robocop-style appurtenances on his belt. He didn't have any weapons or anything. He just watched the people shout over folded arms. The back of his shirt said "Security." There were two news trucks there (this is the restaurant closest to West Hollywood, which is homosexual central), and their microwave masts were tumescent and eager, but they weren't doing live coverage... There was nothing much to see.

There was one older guy (my age) who seemed to be trying to get people involved in a shouting match. I figured out after a few minutes that he was on the side of gay marriage, but mostly people were just snickering at him while they wolfed down their chicken and 'taters. One of them taunted him: "You're STRAIGHT! You're too unhappy to be gay!" A lot of people laughed, and he stormed off to think of something clever.

There was no kissing. I couldn't even cop a feel. Part of the problem is you can't tell who's gay and who's straight. This can be a problem in certain urban contexts. But just like over the weekend, everyone there really seemed to enjoy their fast food.

Just like over the weekend, I looked over the menu, REALLY carefully this time, but still couldn't see anything I wanted to put into my body. (I thought about getting a "chocolate chunk" cookie, just to earn my presence on their property, but couldn't find the will... This was obviously a factory confection made with lots of stabilizers at a factory in Toledo three weeks ago.) I felt bad about it, because I wanted something in my hands before approaching the manager to chat... But I decided to do it anyway.

OK, I'm NOT gay, but this was a GREAT-LOOKING kid! About 23, PERFECT hair, clear eyes, bright-white teeth, movie star jawline. I wanted to introduce him to my niece. I knew he was manager because he was in a button-down shirt with the CFI nametag on it. A few other CFA people (polyester knit shirts) were approaching him with questions... They were watching the events on the corner, but there were no confrontations. When he was free, I began an interview.

Hey, howya doin'.

Things are good.

So you haven't had any problems here today, right?

No, things have been fine.

Nobody's been harrassing your people, right? Everybody's been polite?

Yeah, we....

On BOTH sides?

Well, for the most part.

(I decided not to press.) OK, thanks and best wishes.

(Broad smile.) You too, Sir.

Bad formatting! I'll make it up to you.

Apparently this happened before or after I was there.

Also, I want to squabble with Feebie about the Olympics thing... More later.

THIS happened, I mean.

Also, I have pictures taken with my shabby camera phone. One of them shows a series of nozzles around the circular facade of the restaurant spraying mist over their customers. It looks ejaculatory, but they're just trying to keep everyone cool.

No matter what anyone tells you, it was NOT Zykon-B.

Soon, more about the Olympics.

> So in other words, it's not "fair".

Right. Everybody ought to pay taxes. I don't understand what political power has to do with it. I mean, gays don't have political power, right? I think they oughta pay their taxes anyway. Bankers and union guys have power, and they oughta pay as the rest of us do as well.

> I don't think ANYONE should have their
> asses taxed off PERIOD.

This is like the Amy thing with gay marriage. She thinks marriage is a monstrous holdover from medieval culture, a brutalizing and outdated institution... And she wants gays to do it anyway. You hate taxation terribly, except when some insurance salesman who's been skeet-shooting (or whatever) since college takes a couple weeks off work this summer, and then he gets a pass.

> These groups support a system that
> picks and chooses who will be taken
> to the cleaners and who will be
> overlooked during tax audits.

Aren't you asking to be one of them?

> AGAIN!!!! WHY ARE WE THE ONLY COUNTRY THAT
> TAXES OUR MEDALISTS?

1. I don't care. The United States has all sorts of special burdens and blessings. Y'know, women in Saudi Arabia don't have to pay driver's license renewal fees. Or parking tickets. Or smog check charges. Get the picture? Accident insurance costs them nothing.

2. A lot of countries don't have taxation policy beyond knowing that the best-connected aren't bothered by it... If you're a friend or the King or the Village Big Man, don't worry about it.

> These impoverished countries should
> wisen up, eh?

Not just the impoverished ones. Let's begin by shedding the fiction that the whole of a nation shares in the glory when these athletes get their needs met, as if the whole of the nation should be grateful to them.

Also, more stuff: The point of the earlier comment (interrupted by lunch) was that for a music star, all of that machinery is in place. The the composers for the songs, the musicians, the technicians, the CD manufacturing plants, the TV networks, the press coverage, radio, the touring venues, the touring staff, insurance for the tour, all the rest of it.

Taylor Swift (or Britney Spears or Judy Garland or whomever) is not really doing a whole lot of the work that delivers fulfillment to people. If Taylor's voice had cracked during that one audition, someone else (white; three-chord-guitar; good skin [etc]) would have gotten the gig, and the audience would probably have been just as happy. The delicacy of Paula Cole's song stylings AREN'T what make it all go. Her work, and her identity, is essentially incidental.

So it is with the Olympics. The networks are already there. The producers have already lined up the vainglorious music with strings and the flashy computer graphics, and guys in the arena have already installed those exotic purple lights that twinkle over the 14-year-old girl's head as she steps so proudly off the mat at the conclusion of her routine. SOMEONE was going to be there. All they need is a name to put the machine in motion. Once the get some little girl with her hair pulled back to start jumping up and down, the show can go on.

Why really am I supposed to care who wins a gold medal? (There are 302 of them.) If I don't admire them for running fastest, or rowing fastest, or shooting most accurately, why the Hell should I let my taxation be increased so that they can be excused?

No. Tax them. Including the women, including the children. Welcome them to adulthood.