OT: Win a medal, pay the IRS

[pap49cba]

LINK

 

[OneTrickPony]

Is the author implying that our Olympic Athletes would fail to report their earnings to the IRS...? ...or that they shouldn't? Fog index is a little high, but then it is an election year, so watch yourselves out there...!

 

[diggerfoot]

I probably share with ATR a desire for simplifying the tax code, though I bet we depart mightily on how it should be simplified and who would ultimately benefit in the end. As for this example of world income, no one should be getting worked up over this, though I'll bet ATR will do their best. Olympians get subsidized substantially for their endeavor; for those few that are medalists they get a little icing on their subsidized cake, while the other Olympians just get the cake. Sorry, I'm not getting worked up about that. On the other hand this amount of "world income" would seem to be a trivial pursuit of government. Why bother for the sake of medalists only, unless they were doing so out of some type of consistency?

This consistency of taxing "world income" should be viewed in light of the fact that for forty years the financial sector has grown at 2 1/2 times the rate of GDP. We are somehow finding ways to generate capital without the bother of production backing that capital. There are two main ways to achieve that. One is for the Federal Reserve to print money at a greater rate than the expansion of GDP, which they do. Yet this is not even the main way we've "counterfeited capital" (though some think tanks want you to think so). "World income" such as currency exchanges and tricks related to "comparative advantages" provide a way we can get capital without our country producing, though Olympians producing the "service" of their sport differs from this. This also explains why we might be more inclined to tax "world income" than other countries because it's become more important in our economy for generating capital in lieu of production.

I should add that numbers I come up with are from primary research of Census or National Income and Products Accounts data. Dogmatic think tanks, conservative or liberal, are the last place I would turn to for information.

 

[Frodo]

LINK

Keep in mind the source of this...Americans for Tax Reform is a radical right wing organization with a serious anti-tax agenda. This article assumes the worst possible case...the highest marginal tax rate, 35%, on the medal. Many of these athletes still earn far less than what's needed to make it into that bracket. A few, like soccer, basketball and some of the elite track athletes who make millions per year might be taxed at that rate, but when you're making $10,000,000-20,000,000 per year they probably won't even notice the additional taxes. ATR's calculations also assume that there are no legitimate deductions involved in the effort to win the medal, when, in fact, there are probably lots. Some of the true amateurs, who work part-time at Home Depot or McDonald's so they can have the time to train, won't pay anything close to the max.

 

[meyers7]

Keep in mind the source of this...Americans for Tax Reform is a radical right wing organization with a serious anti-tax agenda.

As all people should have.

 

[FairView]

Why shouldn't they pay tax on income?

 

[alexrgct]

This thread is going to go south really fast.

 

[OneTrickPony]

I'm heading to New Orleans for some beignets then...

 

[VAMike23]

Heeeeeeeeeeeere we goooooooooooooooooo....................down the Rabbit Hole

 

[Vowelguy]

Surprise, surprise ... fact-checking shows that the claim is largely incorrect.

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-m...tax-reform/do-olympic-medalists-owe-9000-irs/