Josh Barro, Columnist

No Special Tax Break for Olympic Medals

August 1, 2012 at 10:36 PM UTC

Josh Barro is the lead writer for the Ticker, Bloomberg View's blog on economics, finance and politics. His primary areas of interest include tax and fiscal policy, state and local government, and planning and land use. Previously, Barro was a Senior Fellow at the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research and a commercial real estate banker at Wells Fargo. He holds a bachelor's degree in psychology from Harvard and lives in Queens, New York.

Provide news feedback or report an error

Site feedback:

Take our Survey

This article is for subscribers only.

Apparently, Olympic medals come along with cash honoraria -- $25,000, in the case of a gold medal. That's income, so it's taxable.

Florida Senator Marco Rubio (R) is very upset about this, so he has introduced a bill to make Olympic income tax-exempt. He says in a statement: