Re: There Are No Free Rides to Outer Space


"Rusty" <reuben_barton@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:1170018858.328565.161880@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
For Contest Winners, There's No Such Thing As a (Tax) Free Ride to
Outer Space

Then reality struck. After some number-crunching, Emmett realized he
would have to report the $138,000 galactic joy ride as income and owe
$25,000 in taxes. Unwilling to sink into debt, the 31-year-old
software consultant from the San Francisco Bay area gave up his seat.

This "problem" isn't unique to winners of free rides into space. It's a
"problem" for anyone winning anything in a contest, lottery, and etc.
Unfortunately, you can't take a loan out on a trip like this to pay the
taxes.

I was talking about this to my wife while watching a TV show that was giving
away a vacation house in Colorado worth something like $2 million. I told
her the first thing you'd have to do would be to take a loan out on the
place just to pay the taxes on it! If we were lucky, we'd be able to use
the place for a couple of years before we'd have to sell it.

Jeff
--
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a
little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor
safety"
- B. Franklin, Bartlett's Familiar Quotations (1919)


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