"According to a spokeswoman for Harpo Productions Inc., Oprah's company, the recipients must pay a tax on the winnings, just like any prize.
For a brand new Pontiac G-Six, the model given away on the show, the sticker price is $28,500. The $28,500 would need to be claimed as income so, depending on the individuals tax bracket, the tax could be as high as $7,000. And that was after Pontiac agreed to pay most of the local charges, including state sales tax and licensing fees. "
I think this is great, not because some of the people are going to lose their cars, not because this was a good deed that turned out not so good, not because I dislike Oprah. When it comes down to it whose fault is this. Is it Oprah's fault? I mean she was the one who gave the cars away. She is also a person who has played poor people in movies so she knows how they feel. She also has huge amounts of people who should know the results of giving cars away. I don't think this is Oprah's fault. I do think it is the government's fault, which have taxed our income.
If their was ever an argument for repealing the Amendment XVI, this is it.
The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several states, and without regard to any census or enumeration.
Just because Oprah did something good for these people, they are going to have to pay the taxes on a car that is worth more than some of them make.
cube
5 comments:
Simple solution: sell the car. You'll still have to pay taxes on it, but you'll end up ahead.
Giving away cars to poor people is pretty nice, but I still don't like Oprah.
Better solution: any bank will happily loan you 7K against a car that's worth three times that. The payment on a 5-year auto loan for 7K is less than $150/month, no matter how shitty your credit is. That's probably less than it costs to maintain a clunker, and it's a brand-new car.
Do what they do in Canada, make all lottery, gambling winnings exempt from income tax. Of course I'm not 100% sure it would apply in this case.
hmm I think I am going to have to go with Gib's idea, mainly because cars depreciate drastically in the frist few years, so a new car is not as much as the money is worth in the bank 2 years from now.
though if you are paying a lot of money in upkeep, i would have to swing toward brian's way.
Also the money could be used to pay off any debt the person has (and in a group that size, their are bound to be some people that have some debt to pay off.)
Thanks for stopping by IncrediblyX
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