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No other country taxes the winnings but us!
Just think its not the greatest policy to tax the medals and bonuses.
American medalists face a top income tax rate of 35 percent. Under U.S. tax law, they must add the value of their Olympic medals and prizes to their taxable income. It is therefore easy to calculate the tax bite on Olympic glory.
At today’s commodity prices, the value of a gold medal is about $675. A silver medal is worth about $385 while a bronze medal is worth under $5.
There are also prizes that accompany each medal: $25,000 for gold, $15,000 for silver, and $10,000 for bronze.
The biggest medal bonus is offered by Italy, which will pay more than $182,000 for a gold medal. Russia’s medal rewards are also quite rich, and the nation’s gold medal winners will collect $135,000. Even Russian bronze medalists will take home $54,400, more than double the payout for American gold. Neighboring Ukraine has been considering an increase to its already rich payout scale: $100,000 for gold, $75,000 for silver and $50,000 for bronze.
Even Ghana promised its gold medal winners a payout of $20,000, not far behind the American reward.
Perhaps surprisingly, the worst medal bonus is paid by Great Britain. Or rather, not paid. The host nation does not pay a performance bonus to medal-winning athletes.
Seems like this comes up every Olympics, and people act like this is something new and unheard of. For tax purposes, the medals themselves are of little value and would at most be a tax burden of around $200 or so. Every article and calculation I have seen would indicate the OP's originally linked article is wrong. The medals are not worth the amount of money they are saying, it is the cash money winnings paid out in cash that is being taxed. For that..........I don't see a problem.
Seems like this comes up every Olympics, and people act like this is something new and unheard of. For tax purposes, the medals themselves are of little value and would at most be a tax burden of around $200 or so. Every article and calculation I have seen would indicate the OP's originally linked article is wrong. The medals are not worth the amount of money they are saying, it is the cash money winnings paid out in cash that is being taxed. For that..........I don't see a problem.
Exactly. It's not the medals that are being taxed, it's the monetary gain that occurs along with the medal.
The medals themselves shouldn't be taxed in my opinion.
They aren't.
The IRC section for what is taxable gross income is very broad and includes the monetary value of prizes. So if you win a sofa on the Wheel of Fortune, you have to report the fair market value of the sofa as taxable income.
However, the IRS has not gone after taxpayers that have won non-cash trophies or similar awards. While they maybe technically can under the general rule for prizes, they don't do it because it is a pain and hassle to do so. Until something like that is sold, it is almost impossible to value them. So for practical reasons, the IRS doesn't tax trophies or medals until they have been actually sold and an exact value can be determined. This usually happens years or decades later when the trophy is now more a collectible.
Every year, some reporter quotes an IRS employee or tax attorney and they always say theortically it could be taxed around the time championship rings are given, but it never happens in real life.
Good! Help pay for the Olympics we host for gazillions of dollars. All for something most people could care less about.
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