It seems that Hillary Rodham’s brother was paid a contingencey fee for getting some drug dealer pardoned. After this was revealed in the press, they announced that nobody did anything wrong, but for appearances sake, they were giving the money back.
So my question is:
If they really did nothing wrong, then isn’t that $200,000 income no matter what they do with it? And if they do decide to give it back, isn’t that transaction taxable as a gift?
On a similar note, there was some publicity a couple of years back about the guy who gave Mark McGwire his 63rd home run ball back. Ultimately the IRS declared that they would not ask the guy for taxes on it.
BTW, if I was Rodham, I don’t know how fast I would give $400,000 back just because my sister was angry at me.