Ask Dave and Luke: Should Olympic athletes be taxed on awards?

Should Olympians pay taxes on their winnings? (AP)

Americans who win gold, silver or bronze at the Olympics gets a cash award from the U.S. Olympic Committee of tens of thousands of dollars.

Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida doesn’t want them paying taxes on the honorariums.

The Republican lawmaker introduced a bill Wednesday that would exempt medal winners from the taxes, calling the penalty ridiculous. The USOC says a gold medalist gets $25,000, a silver medalist $15,000 and a bronze winner $10,000.

Rubio’s office says that the Olympics are unique, with U.S. athletes volunteering to represent the country, and that success should be celebrated, not taxed.

Dave Ross gives the idea a thumbs down.

“I think it’s idiotic,” says Ross. “The prize money should be taxed.”

“Why?” asks Luke, who says these Olympians put a lot of time and money into developing in their skills to compete and represent the US.

“They’ve done a lot for this country,” says Luke. “Why can’t that be tax exempt?”

“I think most Americans when they find out these Olympic athletes have to pay taxes on their Olympic winnings, that would be something that would cause them to do a doubletake and to say, ‘Well, we should change that.’ I would guess that would be the majority opinion,” says Luke.

Ross and Burbank listeners seem to be proving Luke’s theory:

Robert in Carnation writes:

On gold medal taxation, I’m with Luke on this one. We already pay our Olympic athletes quite a bit less for medals than most other countries and then tax them on top of that? That’s just not right, also many of our athletes don’t get endorsements and extra income from their Olympic performances so that they can maintain their amateur status and perform for whatever college they choose to go to. There’s also a good chance that the 25k they get for a gold is the only income they have for they year as I doubt many gold medal athletes have time after training to hold down a job. We’re rewarding them for representing our country, we should not penalize that reward.

Dee in Seattle writes:

Luke is right!!! about Olympians not having to pay taxes on Olympic medals. Most of these athletes pay and support themselves to make it to the Olympics. It is a point of National pride for them to be there and win medals for the “United States of America” (of course it’s cool personally also) But for the amount they have personally invested they should not have to pay taxes on their award.

Vic in Kent writes:

Just thought you’d like to know that some contract workers that work with the military can make up to 80K without taxes, anything over that is taxed. Not all the areas those workers go are in a war zone. So yes Olympic Athletes should not be taxed for representing their country.

Some dissention:

Mark in Seattle writes:

I usually agree with Luke, but disagree on not taxing Olympic medal winners. How about Blue Angel pilots? There are probably fewer of them than medal winners, and takes rare talent!

Jim in Seattle writes:

The taxing the medal thing is a mostly fake convservative outrage issue that allows them to demonize government.

Luke responds:

I agree that it’s Marco Rubio trying to score points, but I also think it’s dumb and they should just change it. Even though you’re right it is sort of a creation of the conservatives, but it bums me out because I have to agree with them on this one.

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The Associated Press contributed to this report.