Add presumptive GOP nominee Mitt Romney to the list of people who want to stop the federal government from taxing Olympic medals.
“He believes that there should be no taxation of the type you are describing on their hardware,” Eric Fehrnstrom, a top adviser to Mr. Romney, told reporters in a conference call on Thursday.
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In a follow up email to the campaign asking whether the former Massachusetts governor, who led the 2002 Olympic Games in Salt Lake City, had ever called for medals to be tax free, Andrea Saul, a spokeswoman said that Mr. Fehrnstrom was the “first from the campaign to discuss.”
The comments come a day after Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, a potential running mate, introduced a bill to wipe out the tax, arguing that it is another way the government squeezes those who succeed.
Athletes who win a gold medal also earn a $25,000 honorarium — and with it an $8,986 tax bill to the IRS, according to Americans for Tax Reform, which crunched the numbers. That covers both the honorarium and the tax on the value of the gold in the medal itself.
The silver medal tax comes to $5,385, and the bronze medal tax is $3,502 — including $2 for the value of the bronze medal itself, and the $10,000 honorarium.
