PITY THE FOOL

The fool I'm referring to here is the poor sap from New York who caught that Barry Bonds home run ball in San Francisco earlier this week. The ball is reputed to be worth in the neighborhood of a half-million dollars.

Here's the rub. Accountants certainly aren't in agreement on this, but some are saying that this character owes the IRS about $200,000.

Think about it. If someone gives you a car worth $500,000, you must include that car as income on your tax return. The extra income shoves you into a higher bracket, and you're going to fork over at least $200,000. Well, what's the big difference between someone giving you a half-million dollar car and a half-million dollar baseball?

New York tax lawyer John Barrie says: "It's an expensive catch. Once he took possession of the ball and it was his ball, it was income to him based on its value as of yesterday."

Some tax experts say that no, you don't have to pay the tax until you actually sell the ball. Sell, that's not the way it would work for the car, so why would the government treat that ball any differently?

Isn't this just grand? Our wonderful tax system at work. Does anyone out there have any suggestions as to how we might change things?