US Olympic Metals Winners - Introduction to Taxes 101

You push your body beyond the point of exhaustion. You spend endless hours away from friends and family honing your skills. You travel from city to city, from state to state and from country to country competing gaining experience in your sport. You have little spare time to enjoy the smaller things in life. While friends and acquaintances are texting and chatting about the latest movie or music video release, you are at the gym, in the pool, on the track, etc. Why? Because you are driven by a desire to be the BEST in the world.

After enduring the hardships, frustrations, trials, tribulations, setbacks, you finally succeed in making it to the Olympics to represent your country. There all the years of training and dedication finally pay off and you finish in the number 1, 2, or 3 spot, claiming a metal that shows the entire world you are indeed the best or among the best in the world. And then what...

If you are an American, the IRS comes knocking on the door with its hand out taking its "fair share" of your earnings.

Go for the Gold! (Pay the IRS.)

10:35 AM, Aug 1, 2012 • By JONATHAN V. LAST

Because conservatives are scrooges, the good folks at Americans for Tax Reform have gone through the fine print to find out what our Olympians will have to cough up to the IRS should they be lucky enough to win any medals in London.

Even by the standards of our government, the numbers are insane.

For instance: Americans who win bronze will pay a $2 tax on the medal itself. But the bronze comes with a modest prize—$10,000 as an honorarium for devoting your entire life to being the third best athlete on the planet in your chosen discipline. And the IRS will take $3,500 of that, thank you very much.

To read the rest of the article, please click on the following link:

http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/go-gold-pay-irs_649187.html