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  • 2012-07-31 (xsd:date)
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  • U.S. Gold Medal Winners Pay Thousands in Taxes? (en)
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  • One aspect of the Olympic Games many U.S. viewers remain unaware of is the fact that U.S. medalists (like those from many other countries) receive cash prizes along with their medals: $25,000 for gold, $15,000 for silver, and $10,000 for bronze. These rewards are not paid by the International Olympic Committee (which furnishes the medals), but by the U.S. Olympic Committee. Similarly, participants from some other countries receive monetary prizes put up by their home countries' Olympic committees. Forbes reported on the issue of medal bonuses in July 2012, noting that: In July 2012, a blog post alerted many American readers to these prize winnings, noting that the monies earned by Olympic athletes (along with the value of their medals) were considered taxable income and could require gold medal winners to shell out up to $9,000 to the IRS. While it is true that prize winnings (including cash awards obtained through the attainment of Olympic medals) are considered taxable income in the U.S., it's unlikely any U.S. gold medal winner would incur a tax liability of anything close $9,000 per gold medal. For starters, that estimation was based upon the assumption that the winner would be paying a 35% tax rate, which (in 2012) only applied to persons earning more than $388,350 per year. While some athletes may end up realizing incomes that put them into the higher tax brackets through endorsement deals or participation in professional versions of their sports, many athletes earn their medals in lower-profile events that don't afford them such lucrative money-making opportunities. Additionally, many athletes could probably write off their Olympic prize winnings against the cost of their training and other related expenses, to the point that their tax liability for those winnings would be significantly lowered (if not completely eliminated). That $9,000 figure was also based on the assumption that medal-winning athletes would be paying taxes on the monetary value of the medals themselves (based on the types and amounts of metal the medals contain), which as CBS News calculated ranged from about $5 to $644: The question of whether the value of Olympic medals is a form of taxable income in the U.S. is still somewhat open. The Financial Post tackled the issue of whether Canadian athletes were responsible for paying taxes on their winnings from the 2010 Winter Olympics, stating that: Even if the IRS did consider the value of Olympic medals to be a form of taxable income in the U.S., it's probably unlikely that agency would come after any athletes who didn't declare that income on their returns, as Reuters observed in an article on that topic: Over the years, members of Congress have offered various proposals to exempt U.S. Olympic medalists from being required to pay taxes on their winnings, without success so far. But they're still trying, and on 12 July 2016 the U.S. Senate passed a bill (SB 2650) sponsored by Senator John Thune of South Dakota titled United States Appreciation for Olympians and Paralympians Act that seeks to exclude as taxable income prize money and medals won through competition in the Olympic Games or Paralympic Games: This bill still has to be passed by the U.S. House of Representatives and signed by the President before becoming law. (en)
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