Should Catching a Baseball Be Taxable Income?

the tickets are hit with sales tax. not the same thing.

however, the ticket itself raises an interesting point. on the back of the ticket is a disclaimer stating that MLB, the team, the owners etc are not responsible for any injuries you might sustain while in the park. The disclaimer is there so that you don't sue when a fat drunk falls on you, breaking your back (twice this year in NY - one for each team). It's there so you don't sue when you get clobberd by an broken bat or a foul ball or a home run.

so, they aren't responsible for an injury from a ball hit into the stands? if that is the case, then it is in your best interest to protect yourself from being hit by a ball. how best to do that? catch it. then return it to its owner. that would be MLB, the team etc. They don't want it because that is part of the fun of coming to the game. catching a ball. so, that ball is a gift from them to you, for paying to see the team, for risking injury by sitting in home run territory and for agreeing to not sue should some harm come to you while you sit and enjoy the game.

gift. if anyone's paying a tax on the ball, it's the individual giving the gift to you the dude who catches the ball.

i'd sell it to a relative for $2.00, now it has an actual value and you can be taxed on that. damn, ill pay that tax on $2.00 for him.

Originally posted by Keyhole
According to a tax lawyer, as soon as Matt Murphy caught the 756th home run ball by Barry Bonds, he was instantly responsible for paying taxes on a ball that may be worth $600,000.

that Tax Lawyer must have gotten his tax-law degree fom a box of 'Cracker Jacks'


Mr. Murphy will be responsible for tax if and when he enters a taxable transaction....for money, goods, services, or even trades one baseball for a super-bowl football involved in a 100 yard hail-mary-pass
reception that wins the game in a 1000-1 longshot.


i'll make sure i never put that tax-lawyer on retainer in my lifetime


[edit on 10-8-2007 by St Udio]

Originally posted by Crakeur
the tickets are hit with sales tax. not the same thing.

however, the ticket itself raises an interesting point. on the back of the ticket is a disclaimer stating that MLB, the team, the owners etc are not responsible for any injuries you might sustain while in the park. The disclaimer is there so that you don't sue when a fat drunk falls on you, breaking your back (twice this year in NY - one for each team). It's there so you don't sue when you get clobberd by an broken bat or a foul ball or a home run.

so, they aren't responsible for an injury from a ball hit into the stands? if that is the case, then it is in your best interest to protect yourself from being hit by a ball. how best to do that? catch it. then return it to its owner. that would be MLB, the team etc. They don't want it because that is part of the fun of coming to the game. catching a ball. so, that ball is a gift from them to you, for paying to see the team, for risking injury by sitting in home run territory and for agreeing to not sue should some harm come to you while you sit and enjoy the game.

gift. if anyone's paying a tax on the ball, it's the individual giving the gift to you the dude who catches the ball.

I understand that. THe tax on the ticket is the only legal one, that was my point...

Well if he donated the ball to a museum or something wouldn't it be a $600.000 tax write off? Thats a hell of a write off and I bet it would piss the IRS off.

donating it to the Baseball Hall of Fame would get you a donation valued at the time of the donation (you'd need an appraisal).

The deduction is limited, depending on how you handle the transaction. If you report the capital gain on the ball (basically the $600k profit) you can write off the donation value, up to 50% of you adjusted gross income for the year. If you don't pay the cap gains tax, the deduction is limited to 30% of your adjusted gross income. Any unused amounts are carried forward to the following year's taxes.

The IRS sure has their end on lock down. Its like whatever they want they get.
Kinda like the saying "Whats mine is mine and whats yours is mine".

I don't know how it works over there but who did the ball belong to? Is there no rule set by the stadium/team/league/whoever supplies the balls that if a ball is hit into the stands then whoever catches it gets to keep it? Not even an unwritten rule? I mean I thought that's how it worked, like sportsmanship and all, that was a thrill of going to a baseball game.

Maybe Barry Bonds should step in and say "Hey! I'm the SNIP home run champion and I say that Murphy can keep it!"

That should settle it, I mean who's going to argue with that, the guy's a hero!


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[edit on 10-8-2007 by 12m8keall2c]

here's an example that comes to mind which makes this lawyer's comments seem a bit more off.

let's say you're scuba diving a wreck and you aren't in the business of locating artifacts. Pure hobby/sport for you. On one dive you come across some jewelry or other valuable object that is worth $600,000. You will surely pay taxes when you sell it but finding it? Absolutely not. If you strike oil while digging in your backyard, you don't pay income tax on the oil found until you sell it. If you are hiking and find gold in a stream, you pay tax when you sell it, not when you find it.

That's a lawyer I wouldn't hire.

I know, its bad enough that some poor sod catches a break just to find out that its going to be more of a burden than a lucky catch. I would take my ball and go to another country and sell it elsewhere.

Originally posted by malganis
Maybe Barry Bonds should step in and say "Hey! I'm the SNIP
home run champion and I say that Murphy can keep it!"

That should settle it, I mean who's going to argue with that, the guy's a hero!

Bonds was asked if he wanted the ball and he said "I never wanted any of my home run balls. A fan catches it, a fan should keep it.

It might have been the one unselfish thing the man has ever said.

Originally posted by Crakeur

let's say you're scuba diving a wreck and you aren't in the business of locating artifacts. Pure hobby/sport for you. On one dive you come across some jewelry or other valuable object that is worth $600,000. You will surely pay taxes when you sell it but finding it? Absolutely not. If you strike oil while digging in your backyard, you don't pay income tax on the oil found until you sell it. If you are hiking and find gold in a stream, you pay tax when you sell it, not when you find it.

Unfortunately this is not correct, say a family member gives you a diamond they say they found and its big and expensive and it gets to the media, grand daughter receives presumed lost 100 carrot diamond broach from her step uncles estate. The IRS sees this as other Income and the valuation must be reported and any capital gains paid.

Thus should you find ship wrecked valuables while diving you must report the valuation of the recovered items taken and report as other Income.

Lets not mention the fact that the actual act of "recovery" is illegal without the issuance of a salvage permit from the owner of the territorial waters in which it was recovered, which there is a fee involved and often is calculated on a percentage of the expected recovery valuation + any associated fee's imposed by that county, state or federal agency.

Keeping "recovered" items for profit without a salvage permit therefore is akin to stealing from the government and should the government be aware of your recovery you will be asked to relinquish control of said recovered items plus fee and penalties for any items you may hold sold prior including 100% of all profits/gains and still be liable to penalties in addition. Reasoning is the government can petition that sells of the recovered items where below the true "market" value of the items and thus can penalize you at a much higher valuation for the goods then what you may have sold them for.

Basically a way to really screw with you for breaking the law in the first place.

Should you strike oil in your backyard, 9/10 says you do not own the "mineral rights" to the what lies beneath your property. So the "oil rights" remain in the hands of whoever still controls the "oil and material deed" on the land. Titles for the last 100 years exclude these rights on almost all personal property deeds regarding home ownership.

Should you own the mineral rights on the land in question and find an unclaimed oil pocket not attached to a larger oil reserve field for which there is a current owner. Then as soon as you make the "claim" to the oil rights, the county assessor will assign a taxation value to the holding for which you will held responsible to pay taxes on regardless if you sell an ounce of oil from it or not.

Finding gold in the stream say 1/4 of an ounce you keep and tell no one, when you sell it you should report the income gained on your taxes, since no purchase cost gain is 100% of the value. At $200.00 this is too small for the IRS to care about. But lets say you are hiking and you find some gold and continue to dig etc over multiple trips and recover a sizable amount. Lets says 50 pounds.

First who's land is it a National forest ? private property ? If gold was ever recovered from this area previously there is more then likely a grandfather gold mining claim for the area of land. Thus any and all gold recovered from the land remains the property of the original claim, regardless of who actually found the gold recently or the costs or time involved in its recent recovery.

If you found the gold in a national park, it is the property of the government thus it would be illegal for you to even remove it from the area. Once again you would be asked to return any recovered gold, plus fines, fee's and penalties for any gold you may have sold.


So lets say you owned the property, you own the mineral rights to said property and you found the gold, you filed with the county the gold miners claim to the deposits, (paid your fee's.....) and recovered the gold. Now you have to file the amount of gold you recovered, it's a condition of your right to the ownership of the claim, un-reported gold recoveries will nullify your right to the gold.....

So now they know you recovered 50 pounds of gold ore, you will get a nice letter from the IRS that you are now responsible to pay gains of X$ on said gold deposits.

(Thus in the times of the gold rush, they would have to sell the gold which they recovered to earn the income to pay the tax to then have the "right" to keep the remaining balance of money earned from the gold)

The gold then went to the government coffers.

The average person has no "right" to keep gold, tax free from the government.

A gold miner did not find gold and hoard it away to parcel out as they needed money. They had to sell the gold in order to generate the money needed to pay the tax for finding the gold.

The nerve!

Taxing baseball? What's next?

What grinds my gears is that they tax you on winnings as well as stock trades and everything in between.

Since when are they taking the risk? I tell you what, next time I buy a lottery ticket and the IRS ponies up $0.50, I'll be glad to give them half the winnings. Oh but your losses are deductible! Bla, bla, bla, yea, tell me how much the deduction covers? Not much Babaganoush!

Yea, you got torn up and bloodied catching that ball and possibly put your life at risk but we waste a heck of a lot of money, so we should get a cut.

Hey! Why in the world should you be entitled to stuff you own? Pay off your house but wait, not so fast! We are still going to tax you on YOUR property forever! Yea, we know that state lotteries were started to support education and other "programs" but we spend too much of that money on ourselves and our interests so by the time we get to education we are plumb out and need that property money.

In the mean time, Senators and Congressmen, etc.. have multiple homes and servants that we pay for but hey get that guy with the ball to cough up a share.

I am sickened! Even though I took some liberties above, it's the general truth.

Lets go back to the example of a house.

You buy the house for $20,000 lets say 40 years ago.

And in your State or city or country there is no prevision for Property Tax limitation such as Prop 13 in California etc.

And the housing market over the last 5 years dramatically increases due to your neighbors building multi million dollar mansions down the street.

But you have made no improvements on the home or property its the same as you purchased it 40 years ago.

Over the last 35 years your property taxes may have gone up a little over time as the county assessor applied a 3 or 4% inflation factor on your property.

But over the last 5 years the surrounding properties being remodeled, re built, sold and resold for now millions of dollars has caused the parcels on your tract/map to jump dramatically. The land value on each parcel and tract on that map where your home and neighbors are located is now being assessed at lets say $1 Million an acre.

It just so happens that your house sits on half an acre parcel.

So you get a bill for a supplemental assessment stating the increase in real property value from $5,000 or whatever the current adjustment was at to $500,000.

Plus your standard assessment for the actual house based on sq footage now went from $15,000 or whatever the current adjustment was at to whatever the new figure is lets say from $7.50 per sq foot when you purchased your 2000 sq foot home to now $1,000 per sq foot.

So now your house is assessed at $2,000,000 and a supplemental for $500,000 on the land $2.5 Million

You are not selling the home you want to live there, but the county says you have to pay $41,300 in annual combined property taxes. Just to live there.

robert,

Are you trying to rile me up more by backing up my post?

You are succeeding my friend and ruining a perfectly good Friday in the process! LOL!

the slick county attorney tells the aging 70 year old, well if you don't sell your only choice to pay the property tax since you are on a fixed income is to reverse mortgage based on equity to create an income stream to pay the $41,000 per year property note.

They tell you that in 5 years the maximum equity will be withdrawn and you will have to "sell" the property.

The aging 70 year old agrees, because she loves the home and the area, she has after all lived there 40 years.

5 years comes up and no more reverse equity payments, property taxes due she is forced to sell or have the property sold in a tax sell.

net to her if she is lucky $30 or $40k to add to her "retirement" and no home to live in.

Wow! You're reading my mind!

I was just going to mention "reverse mortgage". I see the commercials and I know it's some rip off the seniors deal (wolf in sheep's clothing).

Then when the elderly woman confusingly wonders what happened, she gets the old, we explained it all to you when you signed the papers! Now, get out old woman! you're supposed to be dead anyway! Unless you have a baseball you can give us....

[edit on 10-8-2007 by jbondo]

its a carefully crafted plan by TPB to control large chunks of money by reducing the chance of inheritance of large amounts of "equity" based money creation gets passed into the economy, thereby reducing the number of people that rise to the upper level of surplus cash wealth.

i.e. by assuming you are doing the right thing as you grow older by staying in your home thinking you are building a "nest egg" to create wealth for yourself or children etc. They have devised a multi-prong plan to reduce your chance to successfully pull it off.

That is why Property Tax reform is a very key issue to the middle class.

It is vital to having enough income or personal wealth in later years.

Some states and county's have what is termed a Mills levy. Where they have a specific formula that says a maximum of 25% property tax revenue can be collected from personal home property and 75% must come from commercial property and then each district can set a percentage that is calculated against the accessed value for which they may collect taxes on.

Some states have multi year property tax ruling agreed to by the state legislators and passed by the public. Like Property Reform bill 99 passed and has a resolution that says it remains in affect for 25 years etc.

Bottom line there is no guarantee about your financial savings or future income or future ability to stay in your residence regardless of how well you try and plan conditions or laws may change that wipe it all away.

I simply think that the IRS needs to but out, and the guy who caught the ball should be entitled to ALL the money he gets from selling it(if he choses to do so) The lawyer who said he should pay taxes for just possesing the ball should be strung up as an example for all the other vultures out there trying to claim a quick buck on someone elses good fortune. If he worked for the ball, tax him. Since he's all ready been beat up for it, leave him alone.

Originally posted by acegotflows
no income should be taxable.

Your right and wrong, Right in the sense that what we consider income should not be taxed, But what we consider income isn't what the IRS code considers income, Gross income which is what determines is taxed is defined as

TITLE 26 > Subtitle A > CHAPTER 1 > Subchapter B > PART I > § 61

§ 61. Gross income defined


(a) General definition
Except as otherwise provided in this subtitle, gross income means all income from whatever source derived, including (but not limited to) the following items:
(1) Compensation for services, including fees, commissions, fringe benefits, and similar items;
(2) Gross income derived from business;
(3) Gains derived from dealings in property;
(4) Interest;
(5) Rents;
(6) Royalties;
(7) Dividends;
(8) Alimony and separate maintenance payments;
(9) Annuities;
(10) Income from life insurance and endowment contracts;
(11) Pensions;
(12) Income from discharge of indebtedness;
(13) Distributive share of partnership gross income;
(14) Income in respect of a decedent; and
(15) Income from an interest in an estate or trust.

If you dig deeper and read further into the code you will soon realize income and the income tax does not apply to most Americans, The word games played throughout the code are quite obvious in the full context, I suggest everyone have a look into it, making sure to read the legal definitions in the code as reference to what your reading.

You'll notice through out the code, on every instance it appears we as individuals are applicable, its always at the very beginning of whichever section you are reviewing but if you continue read (what they hope you don't do) you will realize as I stated, this doesn't apply to the average American.

[edit on 11-8-2007 by C0le]