Ep. 94 | Going for Gold: How Olympic Athletes Manage Their Tax Bills
Download MP3Welcome to the Teaching Tax Flow podcast where the goal is to empower and educate you to legally and ethically minimize taxes paid over your lifetime.
John Tripolsky:Hey, everybody, and welcome back
John Tripolsky:to the Teaching Tax Flow podcast, episode 94.
John Tripolsky:We are deep into the Olympic games. And today, we are gonna talk about those athletes and taxes and what they have to do with each other. So as always, let's take a brief moment though and thank our episode sponsor.
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John Tripolsky:Welcome back, everybody. We are going for the gold today. That's my cheesy dad joke of the day. You like that one, Chris, don't you?
Chris Picciurro:It's better than most of your jokes, but that's not saying much. Thank goodness there's not an Olympic medal for dad jokes.
John Tripolsky:You know, I I would be up there, man. I think I would I would make the podium for that, and I don't know exactly what sport it is, and I'm gonna mess it up. But, you know, we we keep the bar pretty low. Oh, there's another drop in.
Chris Picciurro:Well, there are bars in in gymnastics. Right? There are the uneven bars. But, John, couple things. 1, I believe the uneven bars is for female participants.
Chris Picciurro:And 2, the last thing any listener wants to hear or envision seeing is myself or yourself flinging our bodies around on the uneven part. Trust me, people. You do not wanna see that. That being said, in many countries
John Tripolsky:The bigger they are, the harder they fall.
Chris Picciurro:Yeah. In many countries, Olympians are, you know, are are huge celebrities. And in the United States, they a lot of them are. We have so many other college and professional sports that occupy us. I'm gonna tie something in, John.
Chris Picciurro:I'm gonna embarrass you. And and Let's do it. Live on this podcast. So we got to spend pretty much all last week together at Taxposium in Orlando, Florida, which was put on by the National Association of Tax Professionals. It's It's basically the Super Bowl of Tax Conference.
Chris Picciurro:You know, a Super Bowl conference, kinda like the Super Bowl for tax professionals. We met, we meet, we always do, this is our 2nd year at the event. We met tax professionals from all over the country, and John and I, we sat down to eat. We just had our speaking engagement conclude and sat down. There weren't many tables open at because there's there's over a 1000 people, I believe, attend this.
Chris Picciurro:So we sat down at a table with strangers. 3 sweet, ladies were next to us, and, and they started talking about and tax planning, of course, and then they're like, oh, the pod yeah, the pod they said something about our podcast And I said, yeah. Well, if you listen to our our sister podcast, which is for tax professionals, you get a free continuing education credit. It's called the Mr. R Show.
Chris Picciurro:And then she asked about this one because she she saw that we had a podcast. And she's so she pulled this woman pulls up up her phone and she's like, oh, I get the Teaching Tax Flow podcast. And I said, oh, that's awesome. You're already listening to it. Thank you so much.
Chris Picciurro:And she goes, Who's the other guy on the podcast? I said, Oh, John, the co host? Yeah. I said, He's sitting right next to me. And she's like, Oh.
Chris Picciurro:And then she said, I didn't think I'd get to meet a celebrity, so apparently as my kids would say and anyone who has children, John, you're carrying the show. You're carrying right now, buddy. So I am so lucky to have you as a podcast co host and I just, that made my week. I just loved hearing that.
John Tripolsky:Wait. We we have a fun time doing this. Right? You know what? I have to try
John Tripolsky:to bring something to the table because as everybody knows, and I like to own fun of myself, I am not a tax professional, So I'm not bringing you know, back to our our Olympic references. Right? Keeping the bar kind of low on my end. Right?
John Tripolsky:And then you guys just raised the
John Tripolsky:bar, but, you know, and we're not talking about college bars here. That's a whole another topic discussion and, you know, listen to the episode about, business deductions, and you can make that, you can make that decision if your bar tab is deductible. This is a different topic.
Chris Picciurro:This is the we're gonna so we like to be very current with our topics, but so we're gonna jump into the Olympics and taxes, but I wanna say, in all seriousness, John and I getting the opportunity to attend this conference, to speak at this conference, It it is a blessing. It is something that's humbling, and what it does, I for me personally is if I come back to historic, beautiful Franklin, Tennessee, a better CPA, a better tax planner, because I learned so much, from the tax professionals. And we know that the tax professionals are are the ones that are, you know, we might talk to a couple 1,000 people a year within the teaching tax flow community, but part of that community are hundreds of tax professionals, and they talk to thousands of people. So getting to speak to them, eat with them, network with them, learn from them, teach them, it is really invaluable. And with that face to face, you know, interaction, and it's a sacrifice.
Chris Picciurro:It's a financial sacrifice. It's a time sacrifice we all go through, but it was worth it. And, I'm coming back excited. I'm coming back really confident in what we have built here at Teaching Tax Glo and our community. That that shameless plug for our for our private Facebook group.
Chris Picciurro:If you're listening to this and you're not part of defeating taxes, that's defeatingtaxes.com, do yourself a favor and jump in there. We get so much interaction, so much learning. You know, it used to be where John and I were doing all the posting. Man, we have people posting questions, ideas, other tax professionals jumping in, people looking for references because what we understand is that ideas are cheap and implementation is valuable. So you're you if if you're a taxpayer listening right now feeling like or a tax professional.
Chris Picciurro:I think one of the things, John, was for me was this sounds great. I know tax planning and strategy is important. I want to to take my practice to that next level. I want to help my clients with this if you're a tax professional, but I don't know how. I want, you know, I wanna ride a bike.
Chris Picciurro:It looks fun. I can go places. I need to wear a helmet. I just no one's ever taught me how to ride the bike because once you know how to ride it, you always know how to ride that bike. So feeling feeling just honestly, you know, that we have a mission to we're we're here and, you know, my mom always said that what good is your knowledge if you don't share it?
Chris Picciurro:So we're here to share what we have, but the dirty secret of of having these opportunities to speak in in these things is that we learn way more from the people that we talk to than than they could take from us.
John Tripolsky:Oh, yeah. Chris, going to those events is a I mean, I always love it too. And and, you know, I would probably say, you know, on any given day, we're probably split 5050, 7525, depending on the topic, on what what the audience of this podcast, the content that we put out to teaching tech well, between tax professionals and we'll just say taxpayers. Right? So it I think it kind of flip flops again depending on the topic, but me again, not being a tax pro, will call me John taxpayer and you Chris tax pro.
John Tripolsky:You know, going to these events that from the taxpayer perspective, it really is cool. I mean, there's no other way to put it. I mean, call it cheesy, whatever it is. It's a it's a well, we'll say an honor. It is.
John Tripolsky:Like everybody just walk into these things, and I mean, you can't pay it off probably. But it it's so it's so cool. It's so, enlightening, invigorating, inspiring, whatever we wanna call it there. Just seeing how much actually goes in to the education side for tax pros. So those, you know, fellow tax payers out there and again, we're gonna get into these athletes and these taxes here and kinda wrap all this together, but it's really neat to see how much value is placed on education, but then also this one, Chris, I think you'd agree with it.
John Tripolsky:At last week's event, it was really, really neat to see how much emphasis was really being placed on technology and and, for lack of better terms, modernizing the profession. I didn't make it to the to the keynote. I think the commissioner of the IRS actually kicked things off on the first day we were there. And from what I heard, a lot of mention was made on technology. TikTok came up multiple times on their other platforms.
John Tripolsky:Throughout those 3 days just on AI and taxes and how it's being used, morally, or ethically being used in tax firms, you know, not just cutting out the middleman, but complementing things, doing a better job for everybody, and we always talk about tax planning. Right? So tax planning was a huge topic there, which, again, it's great to see that that is now a thing. It's no longer the joke, right, where financial players look forward. Your accountant, your bookkeeper, your CPA only looks backwards.
John Tripolsky:I think it's great to see them kinda merge and obviously I've seen, Chris, you know, your team looking forward for over a decade, but it's kind of a joke. Right? It's, oh, you know, my accountant, you know, air quotes, accountant remote keeper, wears a pocket protector and only looks at what I give. It's great to see that that is no longer the case, or at least the industry is pushing it to no longer be the case. So without further ado, let's talk about these athletes, man.
John Tripolsky:I'm I'm itching here because I this is how I live vicariously through through athletes having played ice hockey, you know, 10 years ago. This you know, then I'm intrigued on this one, so let's raise the bar.
Chris Picciurro:Oh, we're raising the bar. Yes. We are obviously so proud of our American athletes over in Paris, and and we talk, you know, teaching tax law about you have to build a team. And we know these athletes have teams of people that help. My favorite of, I don't know, my I think my favorite event's probably the swimming because I did swim in high school.
Chris Picciurro:Didn't swim barely, avoided sinking. So I would swimming might have been, you know, but no, in the track and fields is amazing. So and the volleyball's fun. My daughter plays volleyball and does some sand volleyball, but, you know, I was thinking, John, when we were talking about show topics, like, I'm always wondering about their tax situation. Right?
Chris Picciurro:And quite frankly I don't I did, You know, we started diving in. We've yes. We've had some professional athlete clients. We currently have some clients that are professional athletes, but none of them when they were an Olympian if they were. So there are some special rules for Olympians.
Chris Picciurro:Let's let's start diving into it. So the first thing we have to to know is that Olympians receive prize money from the USOC, that's the United States Olympic Committee, for winning medals. And, you know, back when I was growing up, Olympians were always, I don't even know if they got any prize money because they had to be amateurs, but now these now they could be professionals. A gold medal pays $37,500, Silver, 22,005. Bronze, 15,000.
Chris Picciurro:So I was watching one of the swim swimming meets, races a couple days ago and someone lost by 1 1 thousandth of a of a of a stroke or of a of a second rather. I think it was the 100 breast the men's 100 breast, final. So that that was 75 and he went from silver to to bronze and that was like a $7,250 1,100th of a second, multiply that by how much you would make per hour, I'm sure they're the highest that was the most valuable oneone hundredth of a second in that person's life. So that's interesting. So those are some so when you think about some of those, especially swimmers that could win, you know, 5, 6 medals, that that could be significant.
Chris Picciurro:So they're definitely they definitely get paid in that prize money. Now this is what's tricky, John. Along with the value of the metal is considered taxable income. So that brings up a point that a lot of people miss sometimes. Any type of compensation is taxable.
Chris Picciurro:Now there are some de minimis gift rules, but a lot of people don't know this, that if you're in a game show and you win a car, you have to pay tax on the value of that car. Not just sales tax, but your but your income tax. So the value of the metal is part of taxable income. Now I'm sure that most Olympians would happily pay the tax on the value of that medal.
John Tripolsky:That'd be the easiest check they ever wrote, probably. Sure. Double it. Triple it if you want to. My my wheaties endorsement will cover the rest of it.
John Tripolsky:Right?
Chris Picciurro:Right. So I Yeah. I never thought of it. I didn't and I've been in the business over 20 years. I didn't realize the value of the metal is taxable income.
Chris Picciurro:And then once I thought about it, I'm like, of course it is. So be but before before, I hate to say, someone pours water in your in your cereal, there's other phrases we use, as you said, Wheaties. We feel too bad for these people. There there was a law passed signed by President Barack Obama on October 7, 2016 called the Olympians and Paralympics Act of 2016. And what it did now, John, one of the 3 laws of teaching tax law, the tax agencies are your involuntary business partner, tax laws are gonna encourage and discourage certain behavior.
Chris Picciurro:So we didn't wanna penalize these athletes too much, so president Obama and the congress agreed that they exempted Olympic and Paralympic athletes from federal income taxes on the value of the medals and prize money with a caveat. This exemption applies to athletes with an adjusted gross income of $1,000,000 or less or $500,000 or less if they're married, filing separately. So if the only income you had was winning 3 gold medals, that income would be exempt if you're single, or married, filing separate up to $500,000 married, joint, or single up to $1,000,000 So you can make up to, if your adjusted gross income's $1,000,000 or less, yeah, it's a bummer you have to pay tax on that, or that prize money, the value of the metals is taxable, but it is exempt under this law. We're gonna run through a real life example. Now
Speaker 1:Hey, Chris. A quick question before we jump into that part.
John Tripolsky:So I don't I don't know the answer to this one, which is why I'm actually legitimately asking it. I imagine Olympians have to say it, but professional athletes. So, hey, say you're in the states, you know, pro hockey players, basketball, baseball. Are they contractors, or are they actual employees?
Chris Picciurro:Almost all professional athletes on a team sport are are employees, especially hockey, baseball, basketball, football. Those contracts are collectively bargained, and they all have a union, a player's union. Now some athletes could be an independent contractor, so that athlete could wear the independent contractor role hat. So let's say you're, Johnny t, red wing goalie, and you're paid through the Detroit Red Wings in a collectively bargained, arrangement where you get paid a w 2. But your buddy down down in Florida says, John, I'd love to see you come in and speak at our camp.
Chris Picciurro:You're not an employee of that camp? That would be 10.99. That would be a subcontracting agreement. So you could be both, but your primary income from the from the team, most people in that business call them clubs, would be on a w two. So your adjusted gross income, if it's over $1,000,000, then though their metals and prize money would be taxable if they had AGI.
Chris Picciurro:500,000 for married separately. So what some people would do with some tax planning might be this. Won them an Olympic medal. Hey. I'd I'd you know, I would like to for you to endorse our product for the next year, 2 years for a couple $1,000,000.
Chris Picciurro:No problem. Maybe they arrange some of the compensation to get pushed into 25 and 26, they extend that contract, and they stay under that $1,000,000 for 2024 so that all of the metal income is is tax free. So there's always tax planning that you could partake in or maybe they create a separate corporation and put themselves on a w two for $990,000. There there are a lot of things that you could potentially do to to, to plan. Now you also have to consider state income taxes.
Chris Picciurro:Those obviously vary. We don't have really the, you know, the capacity in this podcast to go through each state. But ultimately, you know, you have to remember, hey, this stuff's taxable. When you win a medal, the value of the medal and the prize money, that being said, there is an exemption under that United States Appreciation for Olympians and Paralympians Act of 20 16.
John Tripolsky:And I imagine too with with most Olympians, right, the cash kinda roll then after they return home. Right? So that's your your endorsements, everything else. Or like you mentioned too, a lot of them are pro athletes. So this is we wouldn't call it just for the fun of it.
John Tripolsky:You know, there's there's pride and bragging rights involved there, but they may return home back to their, respective full time teams. Right? Absolutely.
Chris Picciurro:Here's the other thing you have to consider. We're talking about the this is focused on the United States tax. They might earn income from a foreign country that's taxable in that foreign country. In that so they might have to pay tax in that foreign country. And let me give you an example.
Chris Picciurro:Let's say you're Johnny t hotshot goalie of the red wings. Oh, yeah. You win the gold medal. And for some reason, someone in Canada who would probably be upset that the Americans won the gold medal say, hey. I'd like you to come do a camp for us.
Chris Picciurro:You go to Canada, you go to Toronto, and you do some camps and you get paid as an independent contractor in Canada, you would pay Canadian tax on all of the income earned in Canada. Because you're a US resident and tax resident, rather US tax resident and citizen, but most importantly tax resident, you would also pay US tax on that income earned in Canada. Now, you might be getting upset, you might be wanting to throw the gloves off and throw down because of this double tax. Here's the good news, You have to look at the tax treaty, and what what tax treaty says with the US and Canada is it says, John, yes, That income derived in Canada is taxable in the US, but we're gonna give you a credit in the on your US return, a foreign income tax credit, for any in for any tax you paid in Canada. And typically, the Canadian tax is gonna be higher than the US tax, and you're not gonna owe a US tax on that.
Chris Picciurro:Now we do have several people in the teaching tax law community. Actually, John, we had a wonderful dinner with the group out of Tennessee, at the conference. 1 gentleman, very sharp gentleman, his specialty is helping Germans that that come to the United States or US taxpayers that moved to Germany. So each country has different rules. So so you have to consider where that income was derived.
Chris Picciurro:So there could be some foreign tax aspects of what we're talking about. But that income is is, taxable, with and we're gonna talk about the the and, typically, the Olympians are gonna be considered independent contractors.
John Tripolsky:So, really, if they're independent contractors too, I mean, they're probably well, I don't I don't know about that. They're really paying for everything on their own. Right? But, Jared, there's a lot of expenses. Obviously, you're you're getting there or if you're traveling as a team, you know, I'm sure that some of those expenses are absorbed.
John Tripolsky:So, you know, maybe the, the write offs, deductions, etcetera, aren't as high as one may think. Right?
Chris Picciurro:Absolutely. So those those just like anyone else, Olympians can deduct ordinary necessary business expenses. We yes. We have a podcast on what is what makes it deductible, incurred in their athletic training and competition. So that's travel, coaching, equipment.
Chris Picciurro:So let let's give an example, John. You might this might be one of those rare situations where someone could legitimately deduct a a sports massage or some type of hiring someone to help with their stretching, their their their performance, where that would typically be a personal expense. Is it ordinary and necessary? We all have coaches, and the equipment. And then they are considered self employed.
Chris Picciurro:You made a great point. Typically, they're gonna be because they're not a they're not a employee of the United States. Right? They're paid by the USOC, United States Olympic Committee Committee, as a subcontractor. Now do some of these people set up corporations and, I don't, you know, I don't know because I don't have any clients that are Olympians yet.
Chris Picciurro:We would like some. So, hey, if if if you or if you have a client that's an Olympian, jump into defeating taxes and run it down for us. But I would assume that they're all independent contractors. But, yes, as you've mentioned, John, they're gonna pay tax on their net income, not their gross income. So, yeah, so in the situation where we have an example, let's assume an Olympic athlete wins a gold medal in the Summer Olympics in Paris, alright, they're gonna get $37,000 of prize money.
Chris Picciurro:Let's say that their Olympic medal is worth $5,000. Now that that that's an interesting question, though. But let's assume it's worth $5, and it's $32,000 $42,500. Why do I say it's an interesting question? Does who win the medal in what sport it is affect the the the value of the medal?
Chris Picciurro:Right? I mean, if you if you won the Skeet Shooting medal bronze, which great. I mean, any Olympian is something to be very respected versus you win the female overall gymnastics medal, and you're famous. You're like Simone Biles or some some super famous person or a swimmer like Michael Phelps when he was, you know, a a very well known does that medal worth more because Michael Phelps won it versus a sport that's not as as popular?
John Tripolsky:It's a good question. I'm I'm almost envisioning this as almost being like walking into a pawnshop. Right? Like, when you get the reaction of, oh, that's cool, or somebody being like, oh my gosh. Do you know who this is kinda deal?
John Tripolsky:So, you know, perceived value in a sense.
Chris Picciurro:I would say that they probably assign a value of what that medal is worth, regardless of who wins it. I think that's probably what happens. But anyway, either way, let's assume that the athlete made $500,000 that year, they wouldn't have to pay federal tax on the prize or the value of the medal because they're under that exemption. So that's all laid out in that law. So takeaways And
John Tripolsky:I have no idea that this existed at all.
Chris Picciurro:So this is really neat to see and kinda look through with you. It is very interesting. I mean, the takeaways are, 1, medals and the value of the medals are taxable. 2, because of the United States Appreciation for Olympians and Paralympics Act of 2016, though I would imagine the vast to vast majority of people would be exempt from tax. And then 3, you might owe some foreign tax on on on income because that Olympian might do other things.
Chris Picciurro:You know, think about when you have the world championship. World championship might be in Tokyo. You could have some tax implications there. Now I know there are some exemptions for special events as well, but no matter what, you still might do some work in a foreign country that's taxable in that foreign country as a US tax resident. You can get a credit in the United States for the tax you paid to another country as a rule of thumb.
Chris Picciurro:And lastly, let's just band together and cheer for our Olympians.
John Tripolsky:Absolutely. Now now you got me, writing a note here saying to watch the, the metal, the live metal comp too so I kinda see where we're at. You know? And then I can live vicariously through them too. Then envy.
John Tripolsky:Not a not an envy of the tax they'd have to pay on something the size of a coaster. But there's a lot more value in the monetary value you'd have to pay tax. I look forward to it, man.
Speaker 1:I don't even know how long did the Olympics go on instead of, like, 4 weeks or something total for definite I don't know.
Chris Picciurro:I took a it's a solid 2, 2 and a half waist for sure. I'm not a 100% sure.
John Tripolsky:Definitely longer than our podcast episodes. So you guys will be hearing from us a couple more times before the the Olympians all head home. Oh, well, way over there in Patty. So we look we look forward to
John Tripolsky:the outcome. And, Chris, thanks
John Tripolsky:for running through this with
John Tripolsky:us again. And this is kind of,
John Tripolsky:you know, an interesting topic that doesn't really relate to, we'd say, 99.999 percent of us, but I think it goes into some pretty good depth on just how complex all the tax codes are. Right? So they've thought of everything well, not everything, but a lot of things that even if we think, you know, it's so far and few between, so few people this would apply to. It's in that, you know, 35 and a half 1000000 pages of the tax code. So it's it's good to see this.
John Tripolsky:It's gonna run through these things. And, again, to kinda reiterate what we talked on, you know, a little bit earlier in the show as me and Chris were talking about last week down there at Texposia in, in Orlando, Florida, the smoldering, steaming, humid heat, call it. They're doing a lot. So the IRS is doing a lot. I mean, this obviously is not a a show sponsored by the IRS, but I can say as a taxpayer, I am I'm very comfortable on the effort that they're putting forth.
John Tripolsky:They're not just, you know, out to get you. But also to Chris's point, you know, we talk a lot about in TTF is, you know, if you don't pick your tax, the IRS will and, you know, they're not necessarily going to be in your favor. Heck, they're a business. It's in the name of the organization, Internal Revenue Service. It's not the internal charity service.
John Tripolsky:So they do their job. You guys, everybody, you do yours. Lean on your tax pros. Lean on your board of directors. We always talk about your as well at TTF.
John Tripolsky:And as always, we will see you back here on the podcast next week, up at the same time, but a different time. See you soon.
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