It is no secret that medalists in past Olympics have had to pay taxes for their winnings. The Americans for Tax Reform group has estimated that a gold medal could result in a $9,000 tax burden. That is why lawmakers in the U.S. House of Representatives have introduced the Tax Exemptions for American Medalists (TEAM) Act (H.R. 3987), which would exempt Olympic winners from paying taxes on their awards, including medals and cash rewards given to winners by the U.S. Olympic Committee.
Not all countries give their Olympians cash awards for earning medals. The U.S. Olympic Committee awards athletes $25,000 for gold, $15,000 for silver, and $10,000 for bronze. Modest earnings compared to top payer Russia, who gives their athletes $135,000 for gold, $81,000 for silver, and $54,000 for bronze. One would think that smaller countries are the ones that don’t receive cash awards, but no, that is not always the case. Interestingly enough, British athletes don’t receive a cent. Even more interesting, the highest paid gold medal athletes will come from Georgia, receiving $1.2 million for their earned gold medal.
The United States is not the only country working on changing their tax code to provide an exemption for their athletes. Just last week, lawmakers in the Philippines introduced a bill that would provide a tax exemption for prizes and awards earned by Filipino athletes in any internally-sanctioned sporting event. Their bill, however, provides an exemption for all prizes and awards for winning athletes in the last 10 years. The U.S. TEAM Act would provide the tax exemption to athletes starting this year.
The H.R. 3987 is the second attempt in the past few years to provide a tax exemption to winning athletes. In 2012, Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) and Representative Blake Farenthold (R-TX27) (the 2014 bill sponsor) introduced the TEAM Act without success. Currently, there is no companion bill to the TEAM Act in the Senate.
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