Ever thought your life is filled with nothing but disappointment?

[AtmaWeapon]

Yeah so lately I've had a pretty long string of disappointing events and/or random chance things that screw me over out of nowhere but it's kind of hard to feel sad about my lot when I consider this guy:

http://www.cnn.com/2007/TECH/space/01/28/free.ride.ap/index.html


LOS ANGELES, California (AP) -- Brian Emmett's childhood fantasy came true when he won a free trip to outer space.

But the 31-year-old was crushed when he had to cancel his reservation because of Uncle Sam.

Emmett won his ticket to the stars in a 2005 sweepstakes by Oracle Corp., in which he answered a series of online questions on Java computer code.

He became an instant celebrity, giving media interviews and appearing on stage at Oracle's trade show.

For the self-described space buff who has attended space camp and watched shuttle launches from Kennedy Space Center, it seemed like a chance to become an astronaut on a dime.

Then reality hit. After some number-crunching, Emmett realized he would have to report the $138,000 galactic joy ride as income and owe $25,000 in taxes.

Unwilling to sink into debt, the software consultant from the San Francisco Bay area gave up his seat.That is so sad :( Honestly I would have tried to take out a loan or something like that. I mean seriously people are donating tens of thousands of dollars for random goofy "Oh god my credit cards are maxed out" or "Oh I really NEED breast implants" I don't see why he couldn't get $25k donated to him.

Unless, of course, that $25k would count as income and he'd have to report it, then pay MORE taxes in a never-ending upward spiral...

[Darth Marsden]

Oh god, that's just cruel. He has my sympathies.

[Shyvus]

o.o I feel his pain.

I would sink into debt to do that. It would be worth it to me. I'd take out a loan on everything I own.

Edit: Now that I think about it, he'd basically be paying what it costs to get a bachelors.

So. Very. Worth it.

[Seraphim Sniper]

http://images.despair.com/products/demotivators/delusions.jpg

[DarkDragon]

Yeah, I have no sympathy for him. I'd go into debt $25,000 (which can be *easily* paid off by a decently skilled software consultant) in a heartbeat for such an opportunity.

[MasterSwordUltima]

Well its a good thing the earth is flat.

[mikeron]

He was supposedly offered a check for the $25k in taxes, but there'd be taxes on that. However, that new tax would only be around $10k. I think the real hit would be the increased taxes on his actual income, since the prize would undoubtedly raise him a few tax brackets.

[Aegix Drakan]

on noes! stop the presses! a thousand innnocent peole died today but who cares? This guy doesn't get to go into space!! [/end sarcasm]

-_- Who cares if this guy can't go into space? I'm more concerned about the issues that are tearing abart the planet we live on.

[mikeron]

on noes! stop the presses! a thousand innnocent peole died today but who cares? This guy doesn't get to go into space!! [/end sarcasm]

-_- Who cares if this guy can't go into space? I'm more concerned about the issues that are tearing abart the planet we live on.
Yeah, I guess we should all stop having personal lives that are not intimately involved with the world's evils.

[Aegix Drakan]

Yeah, I guess we should all stop having personal lives that are not intimately involved with the world's evils.

:sweat: That's not what I meant...we are all entitled to our own personal lives!

I'm just ticked that this guy is comlaining about not getting something that nobody else could ever expect get too.

OK, sure, it's unfair to him that he's been denied his prize, but I find stuff like Goki's car-crash-lawsuit incident far worse.

[Dechipher]

I disagree. This is on a much larger scale. People get fucked over everyday, no big deal. But this is like....SPACE. No one outside of the space profession ever actually considers having that opportunity. If someone was like, "hey you get to go to space how badass is that?" You'd flip the fuck out. That's why it's a big deal, because it sucks so much to get lifted so high and then have to give it all away because of some asshole tax reason.

[The_Amaster]

This is why I never seem to get excited about anything. I am, but a little voice in the back of my head is saying "Whoah, hold on. Somthing could still go wrong". And often it does. I mean, if he never got the chance to go into spac,e thats one thing, but to have the chance, be all ready, then say, "Whoops, sorry, there was this fine print. Sucks to be you" Well....that's just cruel.

[AtmaWeapon]

on noes! stop the presses! a thousand innnocent peole died today but who cares? This guy doesn't get to go into space!! [/end sarcasm]

-_- Who cares if this guy can't go into space? I'm more concerned about the issues that are tearing abart the planet we live on.Get out of my thread. I've seen countless threads screwed up by this stupid attitude and I don't want to see it rear its ugly head here. You don't like my news posts then post your own stupid news stories.

Yeah, thousands of people are dying and human life is very significant. The fact is, though, "Hundreds starve in Backwater" is not newsworthy by virtue of the fact that it happens every day. What makes news is interesting stories that concern events that are extraordinary or contain some intrinsic entertainment value. This is why the front page of papers have big sensational awesome stories like "Holy smokes gigantic house fire" and the middle pages contain things like "3 insurgents killed in Iraq after suicide bombs detonated early" and "Windows Vista released"; you buy the paper for the entertaining and exciting stories and stick around for the boring stuff.


which can be *easily* paid off by a decently skilled software consultant)I don't know man he answered questions about Java that doesn't bode well for his income http://www.atmaweapon.org/images/emot/laugh.gif

[Shyvus]

:sweat: That's not what I meant...we are all entitled to our own personal lives!

I'm just ticked that this guy is comlaining about not getting something that nobody else could ever expect get too.

OK, sure, it's unfair to him that he's been denied his prize, but I find stuff like Goki's car-crash-lawsuit incident far worse.

Disclaimer: My reply to this is long and will likely offend you.

It's not so much that he can't go, but that it's his life's dream. Also, if you have no admiration for space exploration and research, I suggest you stop using velcro along with many of the aloys and polymers you use every day that have resulted from it. Oh yes, and storm tracking. Google Earth too. And don't forget the current state of peace between the USA and Russia. That saves quite a few people on a daily basis.

First, anyone else could have gone. Him winning the ticket was chance. Secondly, try looking at the situation rather than the man. Why did he have to turn the ticket down? Taxes. Perhaps if you looked a little deeper you would find injustice elsewhere.

And just because something is "worse" doesn't make it better news. Congratulations, you have been mainstreamed into the "horrenous news is the only news" viewership.

Thousands of people are going to die every day from war and injustice. There has not been a single moment in history where there was no war. Are you going to focus on the fact that people are dying of war and injustice everyday? Going to go stop a war? Which one? There's more injustice than the media lets you know. More justice too.

What I find interesting about this is that you see one man's deream got swiped from him. For no good reason. Nope, he didn't die, but since when did you have to die to make a good, interesting news blip?

...Oh yes, since war whored itself out to the television set.

[Archibaldo]

Man that sucks for the guy. I would have done anything to get that 25k$. But 25k$ is alot of money to get a hold of. I still don't understand why he got taxed in the first place. Is it normal to get taxed when you win a vacation?

[AtmaWeapon]

Man that sucks for the guy. I would have done anything to get that 25k$. But 25k$ is alot of money to get a hold of. I still don't understand why he got taxed in the first place. Is it normal to get taxed when you win a vacation?I'm pretty sure the full article explains it but the short answer is: yes.

Since the Internal Revenue Service requires winnings from lottery drawings, TV game shows and other contests to be reported as taxable income, tax experts contend there's no such thing as a free spaceflight. Some contest sponsors provide a check to cover taxes, but that income is also taxable.So whenever you win cash, you have to report it as income. My guess is that to be legal, this contest had to specify an approximate cash value for the trip, and that value is considered to the the amount of money the man won.

It's a pretty cruddy state of affairs but I don't necessarily oppose the idea of taxing contest winnings. It's technically similar to getting a large increase in your salary for a short period and it makes a lot of sense to be taxed for it. The stupid part to me is the trip is not liquid cash; the guy is not being awarded a large amount of cash he can either spend on the trip or something else. If that were the case I'd say "tough luck man" but I'm having troubles understanding how the free trip to space represents any kind of income the man could have used for investments or living expenses.

[g.iaroos]

It's a pretty cruddy state of affairs but I don't necessarily oppose the idea of taxing contest winnings. It's technically similar to getting a large increase in your salary for a short period and it makes a lot of sense to be taxed for it. The stupid part to me is the trip is not liquid cash; the guy is not being awarded a large amount of cash he can either spend on the trip or something else. If that were the case I'd say "tough luck man" but I'm having troubles understanding how the free trip to space represents any kind of income the man could have used for investments or living expenses.


Exactly. Taxing such things is like saying, you won a trip to space, but you owe the states a part of it. However, I understand the law in this because if you would tax only cash prizes, people would take the prize then sell it to some friends without declaring it.

[Rainman]

Jeez, this is fucking stupid. I cringe everytime I hear about the government getting taxes off contest winnings. I don't see at all what business it is of the government.

[AtmaWeapon]

Jeez, this is fucking stupid. I cringe everytime I hear about the government getting taxes off contest winnings. I don't see at all what business it is of the government.Well like I said for cash prizes it makes a lot more sense but for things that have no tangible value other than a declared cash value it is a lot more dubious.

In my mind it makes perfect sense that if someone wins a cash amount that represents a significant portion of their income for that year they should pay taxes on that value as if it were income. The current tax system and the general sentiment of people that I know is that the more wealth a person has, the more they should have to pay in taxes. Suppose you make $50k a year and win a $100k prize. The government views this as if you got a sudden wage increase to $150k and taxes accordingly. I guess it's a personal preference thing, but even losing 1/3 of the total prize I'm still $66k in the black so I don't really have a problem with that. The money you pay with those taxes pays the salaries of federal employees and soldiers and it also supports social programs such as Social Security.

Of course, that's just whether or not I personally care about it. Also, that's only my belief for cash prizes. The idea behind taxing cash prizes is that before you start spending your cash on luxury purchases and bling, you should give a little bit to help the government who in turn helps you by providing police protection, fire services, etc.

It's really illogical to me to tax something like a trip to space though. I could take a $100k cash prize, clear all my debts, buy several luxury items, and still have enough left over to pay the taxes. The tax, in this situation, reduces my winnings but places no extra burden on myself. In the very worst case scenario the prize money will be reduced to a negligible amount, but at the end of the day I can still say my financial situation has not been affected in a negative way. However, by applying a tax to a non-liquid prize such as a trip to space, the government is completely changing the situation:

Now, the situation is more analogous to as if Oracle offered the man a reduced price on the trip to space. Instead of $135k+, he will have to pay $25k to take it. This is considered unreasonable by the man and he forfeited his "prize". This is why I agree with taxation of cash and liquid asset prizes but do not agree with the taxation of prizes which have no immediate cash value. One situation reduces the prize you can win, the other situation turns "winning a contest" into "inheriting a debt".

[Rainman]

I should mention that I'm not wild about taxes in general. Besides that, taxes on prizes just seem like a major buzzkill after such a happy occasion. It seems to me analogous to taxing charity givings. Even more ridiculous is the taxing of lottery winnings. It's a state sponsored institution that makes money in and of itself, but the government also takes another chunk of the winnings. Anyway I'm not here to debate taxation. I just think a lot of it seems ridiculous to me.

[AtmaWeapon]

I should mention that I'm not wild about taxes in general. Besides that, taxes on prizes just seem like a major buzzkill after such a happy occasion. It seems to me analogous to taxing charity givings. Even more ridiculous is the taxing of lottery winnings. It's a state sponsored institution that makes money in and of itself, but the government also takes another chunk of the winnings. Anyway I'm not here to debate taxation. I just think a lot of it seems ridiculous to me.Yeah I'm not going to argue your points because it is clear this was stating opinions rather than seeking justification but there is something I'd like to point out about your analogy:

An analogy to taxation of charitable contributions isn't exactly a good analogy because as far as I have seen charitable contributions are actually deductible from your taxes. The idea here I guess is if you are taking some of your taxable income and using it to assist the less fortunate (which is something the taxes do in the first place) then there's no need for you to pay taxes on that income.

[Prrkitty]

Apparently the guy is getting a second chance for his space ride/flight...

http://www.cnn.com/2007/TECH/space/02/06/free.ride.ap/index.html

[Seraphim Sniper]

Apparently the guy is getting a second chance for his space ride/flight...

http://www.cnn.com/2007/TECH/space/02/06/free.ride.ap/index.html

I see this ending is an crash(hopefully an explosion) and a nation crying.

[biggiy05]

I see this ending is an crash(hopefully an explosion) and a nation crying.

What the hell? You need some help.