Phil Mickelson Needed to Pay 61% in Taxes For His Fame
“I might move away from California because of the State taxes here”, quoted Phil Mickelson and guess what? He became the hot topic this past January when he had to sacrifice 61% of his money he earned from of 2013 Open Championship and The Scottish Open in the shape of governments taxes. Steeped tax rates and UK’s policy to collect more taxes on endorsement earnings of non-resident athletes with the rest of the taxes from United States government, were the factors behind this dramatic situation.
Mickelson actually need to pay the same percentage of taxes for both tournaments which doubled his pain. He earned about $ 2,167,500 from both events and his complete tax penalty from these earnings was $ 1,324,800. He would be taking only $ 842,700 along with him. That is discouraging for a successful athlete like him to earn lot of cash and then just let 61% of his earnings be in the buckets of government. This is definitely weird and stressing for him.
Now, everybody knows that governments collect all this money for progressive purposes and impose their strict tax policies upon the rich and other high level earners. But these are not the only reasons for Phil Mickelson having to pay the stepped up taxes. Britain’s strict tax policies for non-resident athletes are also being accused for all this drama. Furthermore, he also needs to pay United States federal taxes and California taxes that combined sum up to 13.3%. That is lot of money to pay for success.
What common people might be thinking about all this? Well their sympathies won’t be in favor of Phil Mickelson because general perception about the millionaires is that they are rich and they should be paying lot of money to the government so that it can be spent on the welfare of the people. The common view about them is that they are famous and rich already and will earn more than general people. But money can only be made by offering something that people want and is therefore inherently good.
Phil was recently ranked at number 7 in Forbes list that consisted of the highest earning athletes around the world but paying this heavy amount of taxes to the government(s) is really a tough thing to do for him. Phil Mickelson did not make any statement regarding this issue. He has to pay all these taxes and he can’t do anything regarding this but to wait until his next earning opportunity. One can imagine his condition right now. It is hard to give away most of your money in that way and without protesting either.
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