Nickeled and dimed.

[BroncoBot]

IRS can't get enough of your money. They're even going after fans who do the right thing. I'd love to give someone's record breaking ball back, but not if it ends up costing me thousands of dollars, granted he gets some nice benefits, but he LOST a ton of money on the deal.

[SpiffCoug]

Couldn't it be argued that he hasn't earned anything, and that the suite isn't his, that he's just a guest each game in the box. And that he never possessed the baseball since it was retruned immediately.

[CAFB_04-12]

I don't understand how the stuff can get taxed unless it's sold for profit?

[Schmoe]

Nice guys finish last. Guess he should have just sold the ball, then he would have had the money to pay taxes and could have afforded all the junk the Yankees are throwing his way.

[BoiseBYU]

The dude just needs to hire some of those tax lawyers at GE which did not pay a cent of taxes last year on billions in revenue....

[snoscythe]

Couldn't it be argued that he hasn't earned anything, and that the suite isn't his, that he's just a guest each game in the box. And that he never possessed the baseball since it was retruned immediately.

Nope. There's actually a surprising amount of law regarding baseballs hit into the stands. He put forth effort to catch it, and secured it (a baseball hit into the stands is deemed abandoned by MLB) and recovery of abandoned property is taxable--like finding buried treasure or a bunch of money in a piano you buy at garage sale.

He will be lucky if the IRS only taxes him on what the Yankees give him. They could tax him on the value of the ball on the open market, which would be much larger than the value of what the Yankees gave him.

[tmoney35]

That guy is incredible. First, he gives back a $300,000 ball then, he refuses to say anything negative about possibly getting taxed $13,000 for some gifts.


From one of the commentors on the article:

Looks to me like he made a 250,000 dollar charity donation to the baseball hall of fame. He should start with that as a credit to his income and then figure his tax bill overall.

[Lawboy]

Typically, gifts received are tax free if up to $13,000 per year per person in value. However, if over that, taxes are due--at the estate tax rates, and generally the tax is paid by the giver. However, in some states like New York, they still tax the inheritance taxes for certain gifts received. And if it is an in-kind gift (not cash), the gift is valued at the FMV of the asset received.

Basically, some states stick it to you worse than the IRS, if you can believe it.