Rubio is Wrong on Olympic Exemption
It looks as if Olympic fever may have gone to Marco Rubio’s head. That’s because, in the name of simplifying the U.S. tax code, the senator from Florida proposes to further complicate it. And he’s making this proposal on the coattails of our Olympic athletes. In brief, Rubio wants to make tax exempt the prize money that the U.S. Olympic Committee awards to medal-winning athletes at the games—prize money that most Americans have been largely unaware of until the good senator proposed his bill . So, what’s a paltry two pages on top of an over 72,000-page tax code? It’s not as though tiny little exemptions are what made it grow complicated and cumbersome. Well, as concise as it is, Rubio’s bill goes directly against the point he is trying to make by introducing it. Said Rubio, “Our tax code is a complicated and burdensome mess that too often punishes success, and the tax imposed on Olympic medal winners is a classic example of this madness…” Um, except it’s not. The fact that our tax co...