Letters: Olympic medalists shouldn’t pay

Re “Tax-free Olympic glory?,” Editorial, Aug. 9

What’s so wrong with allowing Olympic-medal-winning athletes to receive their nominal honorariums tax-free from the U.S. Olympic Committee?

Your comparison of the athletes with public service employees such as firefighters is an apples-and-oranges one. Being an Olympian is an opportunity to represent your country; the other is a professional career. You write that any decent accountant could reduce an athlete’s tax liability to practically nothing — so why not just give the athletes a break from our complicated tax code?

Wayne Muramatsu

Cerritos

President Obama and Mitt Romney both promise to simplify the tax code and get rid of special breaks — that is, until anti-tax advocate Grover Norquist taps his wallet. Too bad that we can’t vote “none of the above” and force a constitutional convention.

The first thing that cults do is tell their members that everyone else is lying to them and have it much worse than they do. That’s true of North Korea, and of the U.S. political system. Our system can’t deal with reality.

Bob Snodgrass

Pasadena

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