James_Rose's Blog

As I interviewed Master Sgt. Griffin about his winning a share of the Texas Lottery... I wondered... should a man fighting for our freedoms overseas in a combat zone really be taxed? I mean, after all he split a 12 MILLION dollar jackpot with 25 buddies and after all the taxes were taken out, he's taking home a little less than 200 thousand. It's still a lot of money but.... Let me make this clear-- Sgt. Griffin is not complaining. He feels like he won the lottery twice; once, by safely returning from Iraq and two, by getting a share of the jackpot. He strikes me as a sincere, genuine, honorable man and an obvious patriot. That's what made me think... guys like this are already being taxes by being in harm's way so, don't they deserve a taxbreak... especially on a freak windfall? By the way everyone I interviewed said the same thing... "he shouldn't be taxed he's already risking his life in a combat zone!"

In our morning editorial meeting, most of my colleagues thought it was nice to finally see the "good guy" finish. Before the meeting I briefly Google'd (Soldier combat tax) I got a link saying soldiers in a combat zone do not have to pay federal or state taxes. WOW, I thought, maybe this guy really can cash in... By the way, while I got the green light to check it out; I only received a luke warm response to the follwoup.

My first step... you guessed it... The IRS... the Internal Revenue Service. The Alpha and the Omega of the American tax code. After futilely attempting to navigating through the maze of mind boggling BS, I decided to just call one of the Public Information Officers to get a quick straight forward response. (NOT!!) Let's call him IRS# 1. After explaining to IRS# 1 that a North Texas solider won a share of the Lottery and was apparently exempt from paying federal taxes on his income... would that apply to is winnings as well? IRS# 1 Says "We don't comment on Specific taxpayer situations." WHAT?? I said ok how about in general? I was getting nowhere. So, I called and an IRS spokesman in our nation's capital... that ought to get me an answer right? Wrong! IRS# 2 tells me "We cannot comment on hypotheticals." Before I pulled the trigger I got some coffee made some calls on another story I'm working on... and I got a call from IRS # 3 who agreed to give me background information on the matter, If I didn't identify him. (Yes like deep throat) He summed it up by saying Military income in combat zones is not taxable all other outside income is... including Lottery winnings.

That's all I wanted to know in the first place... but my question still remains... can't the good guys get a break. Even if it is just in the form of a one time tax break?

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