The “CBS didn’t tell me I’d owe taxes” excuse just doesn’t hold water. A few years back, I was on “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire” (I didn’t make it to the hot seat, didn’t answer any questions, and didn’t win a cent). ABC gave all of us contestants $150 for meal money, and they made sure we all knew even that $150 was taxable income!
Are we to believe ABC spelled out clearly we had to pay taxes on a measly $150, but CBS neglected to tell Richard Hatch he’d owe taxes on a cool million?
What blows my mind about Hatch is… he won that million dollars in front of tens of millions of television viewers. Did he actually think nobody noticed? Did he assume nobody at the IRS watched “Survivor”?
The same thought had occurred to me, but then I figured, he probably figured no one at the IRS was sitting there thinking “OK, we should be getting that big Richard Hatch filing soon!” or that someone would see his filing and think “Heyyyy, wait a minute, didn’t this guy win Survivor?”
My guess is that he had gotten used to cheating on his taxes and didn’t want to stop now that there was more money on the line. But it was stupid. He should have realized he was now a famous person and his tax return would get noticed. If you were an IRS agent wouldn’t you be looking up Bill Gates’ or Howard Stern’s or Halle Berry’s return to see how much they made last year? And the first person to look up Hatch’s would have thought, “He says he only made $50,000 last year? That can’t be right; I saw him earn at least a million dollars. I better check into this.”
I’m not saying it’s a smart thought, just that he may have had it. And wasn’t it quite a while after winning (a few years) that he got busted? I always figured it got picked up in an audit or something.
How come they didn’t take the taxes out when they gave him the money. When ever you when the lotto, above a certain amount, or even win in the casino above $1000 or so they can/do take the money out and make you fill out the tax forms right then. I’d be suprised if CBS didn’t do both of those. That still doesn’t take the blame off of Hatch, he’s just an idiot.
I’d guess there are pretty strict laws prohibing IRS employees from just browsing people’s tax returns for no reason. I imagine if you access them, it leaves a record of you opening their file.
I don’t think it would be random taxmen looking at files out of personal curiosity. It would be an official policy of looking at people with highly visible sources of significant income, like TV-show prizewinners, just to see if their returns matched reality. I would expect the same thing to happen to CEOs of Fortune 500 companies, where the salaries are pretty well-known and generally very large. It’s just an obvious thing to do.
I was a contestant on Jeopardy! years ago, and received a prize worth over 4K (you did a lot better in those days coming in second, with prizes, than you do today with just 2K cash). No taxes were taken out of it; I received a 1099 at the end of the year with their valuation of the prize, along with the incidental crap I received (a collection of Rice-A-Roni, Hooked On Phonics: Moby Dick, the Comic Book, etc.), and had to pay taxes on it all.
If Hatch says he didn’t know he was supposed to pay taxes, he’s a liar. He was 1099’d. The fact that he received a 1099 and then didn’t report it on his return would get flagged as a discrepancy in the computer system, as I understand it, and would subject his return to scrutiny. Which is probably how he got caught. They’re usually running 2.5 years behind on checking returns – the statute of limitations for an ordinary audit is three years. For fraud, however, it’s seven years, hence their going back to check his prior returns once they found the problems with his more current ones.
Frankly, he deserves to get the book thrown at him. There’s no way he didn’t know what he was doing.
Was that cash or just prizes? I can see not taking out money if you didn’t get any money. I would have thought that for a straight money prize they would take the taxes out since the IRS can get pissed if you owe them more per quarter then the previous year.
Remind me not to go on Jeopardy then, not that I would make it since I missed last night’s final question even though it was easy.
I don’t think the government I allowed to treat famous people differently than schlubs like us.
Heck, could they make an Equal Protection argument if the government did?
I figure he got caught because his 1099 never showed up as Mama Tiger suggests or because of discrepencies in his foundation (which are scrutinzed more heavily than individual returns).
Also, is there the possibility that his accountant blabbed and word got to the authorities.
And there is nothing prosecutors love more than a celebrity trial.
I don’t think so. Income tax already discriminates against the rich, because they pay more of it and at a higher rate. Famous people are not a “protected class”, in any case – and it would not be treating them differently because they are famous: it would be treating them differently because they have large incomes that can be documented outside their tax returns.
I’ve been running over the Kennedy Plaza every day this week hoping to see him enter or leave the Federal Court where his case is being heard. If I catch him, I’ll let him know we all think he’s a big moron.
The production company does indeed take out taxes before giving you the check. If the show is taped in California, that state takes a cut too (7% off the top). Worse, if you get a non-cash prize in CA, you have to pay 7% CA tax on its value before they ship it to you - you have the option to decline the prize if you wish. NY does not tax game show prizes for nonresidents, though, making Millionaire a much better option if you’re trying to get on. Those situations may have changed in recent years, though.
Giles, the opposing argument is that the wealthy still experience much less impact on their lives from the taxes they pay than do those with lower incomes, and therefore they remain privileged rather than discriminated against.
Stupid, stupid, stupid.
Once you’re a public figure you need to cut that crap out.
If they catch anyone famous messing around they have a prime opportunity to make an example of them.
Stupid. This whole thing has my assessment of him going from “smart, slimy manipulator” to “smart, mentally ill slimy manipulator”.
Hatch is clearly deranged. I think the man’s a sociopath who has no remorse or social conscience of any kind as most would understand the term and clearly believes the rules don’t apply to him. This would also explain the clear pleasure he got in making others (especially Sue) visibly uncomfortable with his nudity and his numerous scrapes with the law for assault or violence, ALL of which were “misunderstandings” just like the taxes. I don’t think jail time is in order but I do think with legal fees and penalties and the like he just lost a helluva lot more than the $200,000 it would have been initially; he’ll be lucky to come out of this solvent.
My wife and I actually met the guy in a restaurant in Middletown, Rhode Island (one town over from Newport) during the first Survivor airings. We almost didn’t recognize him, as he had lost a lot of weight since the shows were taped. We of course didn’t know that he would be the eventual winner.
He seemed rational enough in our brief encounter. Then he started making the newspapers on a regular basis…