Nobody Wins
We Americans are SO proud of our Olympic Athletics…and we should be. The cost of training for the Olympics is not cheap. After all, we’re not China. Our kids have to pay their way entirely on their own.
And most of them are not rich: 2012 Olympic athlete Cyrus Hostetler (javelin thrower) states on his personal website, “Sometimes the competition that I face is not the competition on the track but rather the competition of finances, and every year it’s a losing battle. When you total up all the cost of coaching, trainers, medical, equipment, and travel expenses my monthly paycheck just doesn’t add up.” He made a total of $2,273 for throwing a javelin in 2011.
This stinks. Here in America, we find out that we can overpay big, fat, government workers who have never lifted anything heavier than a Starbucks latte, to give themselves million dollar bonuses and expensive vacations on OUR dime, and that’s after they’ve ruined the country: and yet, we tax the success of the kids who work hard all their lives just to get the chance to represent America in the Olympics one day. 
What?
Nobody Knew that our Olympic Athletics had to pay taxes on the gold metals they get. Tell me…did Obama have to pay taxes on his Nobel Peace Prize money? Oh…He donated that million dollars to some charity?
Must be nice to be President and have all your expenses paid by the taxpayers, so that you can give money to charities.
The Athletes at the Olympics represent us as surely as any ambassador or President, so why in the world are we punishing their success with a heavy TAX?
Fire some of the GSA idiots and give our Olympic kids government jobs to train to become future Olympians, or teach Olympians .I don’t’ think there would be ONE taxpayer that would complain.
Athletes who win a gold medal also earn a $25,000 honorarium — and with it a $8,986 tax bill to the IRS, according to Americans for Tax Reform, which crunched the numbers. That covers both the honorarium and the tax on the value of the gold in the medal itself.
The silver medal tax comes to $5,385, and the bronze medal tax is $3,502 — including $2 for the value of the bronze medal itself, and the $10,000 honorarium. All told, U.S. athletes have 57 medals — 28 golds, 18 silvers and 19 bronzes — which comes to a tax bill of nearly $350,000
ATR, the group that crunched the numbers, said it’s unlikely any of America’s competition will face the same taxes because the U.S. “is virtually the only developed nation that taxes ‘worldwide’ income earned overseas by its taxpayers.”
Unless of course you are GE..or have a Cayman Island account.
Marco Rubio is trying to get this nonsense stopped. Let’s hope he succeeds.
