Re: Tax silliness

[Tim May <tcmay@got.net>]

At 10:39 PM -0700 9/7/98, Tim May wrote:
>Folks, I generally restrain myself from passing on all the various news
>stories I see or read.
>
>But tonight Fox News is reporting that the IRS has said it may seek to
>assess "gift taxes" if the guy who recovered Mark McGwire's 61st home
>baseball gives the ball back to Mark McGwire.
>
>(The ball is said to have a street value, to museums or collectors, of
>$250K or so. The 62nd home run ball, the one which breaks Maris' record,
>will supposedly be worth more than a million bucks.)

As you may have heard by now, if you are watching the game tonight, the IRS
Commissioner issued a statement saying anyone who gets the ball and gives
it to another (esp. McGwire) will NOT face taxes.

(Ah, but will McGwire face taxes on such a gift? Just think, had the IRS
not issued a royal decree absolving the perpetrator of taxes, they could
have collected taxes on the guy who got the ball and then taxes on the guy
who had the ball given to him. Through the miracle of multiple taxation,
the IRS gets it all....)

The IRS Commissioner also acknowledged the absurdity of this particular
clause of the tax code, and compared the tax code to obscure baseball rules.

Someone suggested in private e-mail to me that the IRS would likely _not_
seek taxes, but acknowledged that it _could_. And there's the rub.

As it happens, a ballpark employee actually _caught_ the ball, it is being
reported, in a special restricted zone. He says he'll give the ball to
McGwire ("but I don't want to be taxed!" he said on camera). Possibly a
good deal for him, as it heads off a typically American lawsuit by the
owners of the ballpark claiming they own the fruits of his labor, and he
maybe gets a minor book deal, and he avoids villification by the Oprah and
Geraldo crowd.

(I confess that if I'd gotten the ball I'd let capitalism work its magic by
selling the ball to the highest bidder. A million bucks, for starters.)

--Tim May

"The tree of liberty must be watered periodically with the blood of
tyrants...."
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