IRS Taxes Gold Medal Olympians $8,986

Of course, "they didn't earn that".

Are you kidding me? Poor Olympians? They CHOSE to devote their lives to sports! If they weren't doing sports and were working like the rest of us, they would be paying taxes as well. $25,000 for doing something they want to do? Wow, I wish the government would pay me $25,000 for the service I do as a volunteer for numerous charities to help this country. I'd gladly pay some back in taxes.

Your Government does not pay the Olympic winners and your country is the only country greedy enough to do this non of the others country's whose Sportsmen and Sportswomen tax them.

And not only does your country make them pay tax on the gift money that is paid to them when they win either Gold, Silver, or Bronze they make them pay tax on the medals themselves the value of the Gold medal is about $675 so that means they have to pay around $236 on that medal.

Now I dont mind taxing the millions that a few will be earning but what about the hard working ones who don't get to earn those millions. The ones who do it just to represent your country, the ones who work at a job and then when they get home go out and spend at least three hours training go to bed get up next morning at 5am and train again for at least two hours and then go on to work a shift at their employment like quite a few of them do.

I generally agree with you, Graham. Taxing them on the medals is especially bad because it almost creates an incentive for an athlete in an obscure sport who will not have a chance to make any money on endorsements to forgo going for gold medals and instead settle for bronze ones, which probably would cost him just peanuts in taxes.


Also, the impression our athletes and fans make overseas might help spur a little tourism in this country, which will help the economy a bit. After all, thousands of Americans - athletes and fans - will have numerous opportunities to make friends over there with many people from many different lands. Those good impressions they make on them may then translate into some foreigners coming here to see some sights and visit the American friends they made during their stay in London.


Renee does not seem to understand that the conditioning in sports nowadays is REAL WORK. The athletes may enjoy the competition, but I am sure they do not enjoy all the conditioning they have to go through in order to be fit enough to compete at such a high level. Soccer players, for example, have to be in good enough condition to run eight miles in a game. And most of the running they do is actually sprinting, which is much more demanding than jogging.

It's the U.S. Olympic Committee that awards the money, not the government. The committee is chartered under Title 36, but doesn't get an funding from the government. And of course all one has to say is "tax" and you'll fire up the GOPs. And of course the author somehow skipped the additional fact that many other sports federations pay honorariums too.

My question is... Why should Olympians be exempt from paying taxes on money they received for performing the skills they trained for. We don't exempt our soldiers from paying taxes on their pay. And I'm pretty sure they perform a pretty sacred task for us, don't you? Or what about emergency response professionals? I could go on and on but I think you get my point. It's like John D. Rockefeller said. "Taxes are the price we pay for civilization."

Whining about Olympians having to pay taxes is just more of the same old "anti-tax mania that has gripped the GOP for some time now. And trying to argue with one of them about it is kind of like trying to feed feed an obstinate toddler. All that happens is that you end up with a big mess and the toddler is even madder.

Yes, we don't exempt our soldiers from paying taxes on their pay, but we do exempt them from paying taxes on almost all the other compensation they receive for their service. When soldiers take college courses on the posts where they are stationed, they don't get hit with a tax bill for the huge discounts on the tuition they pay (When I served I only had to pay 10% of the actual costs and I suspect that little has changed since those days in regards to that benefit). I also bet that they don't get hit with a large tax bill for the college benefits they earned during their service and can use once they leave the service. And they certainly don't get taxed for the meals they get in their mess halls, the free legal representation they can get on their posts, the medals they receive for good conduct and valorous actions, the clothing that they are provided, their barracks rooms where they are quartered ....

Republicans are not opposed to paying taxes. What they are opposed to is the refusal of our politicians to CUT SPENDING FIRST. When Nixon was president, the government survived on less than two hundred billion dollars annually. Now it CLAIMS it cannot meet the nation's needs even though it is getting more than ten times (or is it fifteen times?) that amount? Give me a break! I probably could even support high tax rates if our taxpayer dollars were spent wisely, but that is seldom the case nowadays. The most recent CBO estimate of the cost of Obama's stimulus is illustrative; it figures that all that spending ($831,000,000,000) resulted in 200,000 - 1,500,000 new or saved jobs. Well, I guess I should be tickled pink! That works out to ONLY $540,000 - $4,000,000 per job. Well, the administration promised that the money would go for roads, bridges ...., so I guess we will benefit greatly from the spending no matter the cost! Well, the administration did not keep its promise! Less than 10% of the stimulus went towards such projects!

Well, tax cuts for the rich don't work, Obama asserts. Gee, that wasn't the case for Warren Harding, Harry Truman, JFK, Reagan, and Clinton (Yes, I say Clinton because he pushed through the largest reduction in capital gains tax rates in American history and that certainly would qualify as a tax cut for the rich, or at least for the well-off).

Yes, we should raise taxes on the rich. Woodrow Wilson did that and darn near left Harding with a depression to cope with. And how about Herbert Hoover? He more than doubled the top marginal income tax rate and also raised corporate tax rates? Guess what happened! The unemployment rate surged past 20%! But what about FDR? Didn't he end the Great Depression by taxing the rich? Well, no he didn't; he was bringing unemployment down until 1937, when he decided the rich weren't paying their fair share and pushed through a large tax increase that caused unemployment to start increasing again. Well, Clinton increased the top marginal rate and look at the boom that followed! Well, no that is not exactly what happened. Clinton increased the top rate in 1993 and the GDP was about 3% for the following three years. That is NOT a spectacular rate of growth for a country coming out of a recession. The more robust rate of growth (more than 4% for three years) came after Clinton CUT taxes in 1996.

"Yes, we should raise taxes on the rich. Woodrow Wilson did that and darn near left Harding with a depression to cope with. And how about Herbert Hoover?..."

Interesting take on economic history of the early 20th century. There are definitely some parts of the argument based on factual errors or at least the confusion of contiguity with causality.

What factual errors? The tax rates for the wealthiest Americans during Wilson's second term were set very high, the unemployment rate rose into double digits, and we had a negative GDP. Harding really did not feel he was capable of turning the economy around, but he promised to reduce taxes during his campaign and that's what he actually did when he moved into the Oval Office. True, the economy actually started to improve before he won the election, but the promise of tax cuts probably had more than a little to do with that. You cannot simply say that a GDP number of 14% under Harding was a matter of sheer coincidence.

As for Herbert Hoover, he actually did what I said he did and the unemployment rate did surge past the 20% mark. You may think I was implying that he caused the Great Depression by raising taxes, but that was certainly not my intention; the depression had already begun before he raised the top tax rates. Several things caused the Great Depression - the trade war caused by Smoot-Hawley, the Federal Reserve's decision to tighten the money supply, horrible demographics, ..., but THE FACT is that the unemployment rate soared after he took that step and the problems caused by that increase lasted well into FDR's first term. If he had not taken such a step, I doubt the unemployment rate would have been so high for so long. I think no economist in his right mind would say that a huge tax increase should be passed when a country is in a recession or depression. His big tax increase and FDR's later increase of the top marginal rates (1937) almost certainly exacerbated the depression. The economy was actually improving under FDR during his first term and he might have been able to end the depression much sooner if he had refrained from increasing those tax rates. If you don't think that is so, I suggest that you look at the unemployment rates cited in The Forgotten Man by Amity Schlaes: July 1935 21.3%; January 1937 - 15.1%; August 27, 1937 - 13.5%; January 1938 (after FDR raised taxes) - 17.4%

I understand that their actions do not prove a causal relationship; statistics (GDP numbers, unemployment rates, tax rates, ...) only prove correlations. However, when time and time again you see such correlations as the ones I've noted - and I didn't even mention Coolidge's tax cuts and his low unemployment rates, you should conclude that lowering tax rates during hard times is a wiser course of action than raising them.

But when Truman and JFK were presidents the top marginal rate was above 90%! Yes, that is true, but they both CUT that rate to spur the economy and what they did worked.

I just noticed a factual error in my first set of comments; Clinton cut taxes in 1997, not in 1996.

I also should add two other things: I should have included the stock market crash in 1929 in my second set of comments as one of the causes of the Great Depression, since that came before Smoot-Hawley and wiped out many Americans' savings, and the wording of my last paragraph is particularly bad because Truman and JFK actually cut taxes across the board to spur the economy. That said, neither Truman nor JFK would have seen the economy do as well as it did if they had only focused on cutting rates for the poor and the middle class.

The government is picking winners and losers. The call it fairness.

Anyone see a problem with that?

Anyone see the lack of integrity?

Our Olympiads must have a work ethical and integrity to make it as far as they have. It’s a shame we couldn’t replace everyone in the government with Olympiads! Just a thought..

The government is picking winners and losers. They call it fairness.

Anyone see a problem with that?

Anyone see the lack of integrity?

Our Olympiads must have a work ethical and integrity to make it as far as they have. It’s a shame we couldn’t replace everyone in the government with Olympiads! Just a thought.

Not surprisingly, this is mostly false. In short, Norquist and the other Republican operatives made most of this up.

Why?

To distract from the fact that Mitt Romney refuses to release his tax returns that show he paid virtually no taxes on hundreds of millions of dollars. And to distract from Mitt Romney's tax proposal that will give additional huge tax breaks to the super-rich like himself - while raising taxes on the middle class to pay for it.

Romney could never give you guys enough. You are on a fishing trip looking for some rope to hang him. Why should he give up anything more than he has. This president has far more wrong with him than Romney... Keep tilting at windmills.

Well when you dont pay taxes for over 10 years, have more wealth than any other presidents and want to overtax the middle class while giving more breaks to you and your kind it would be political suicide to release your returns.

Hmm...The USOC gives medal winners cash prizes. The medal winners pay taxes on the prizes. Publisher's Clearing House gives winners of drawings cash prizes. The winners pay taxes on the prizes. People get a performance bonus at work. They pay taxes on the bonus. Seems to me that it's all income as far as federal law is concerned. If people feel strongly enough they ought to get congress to pass a special tax expenditure bill to exempt the Olympic medalists.