But what is the value of the ball that Barry Bonds hit for the record setting homerun when reciept was established? Has it been determined if Murphy was in receipt of the ball before or after Barry Bonds crossed homeplate. I believe that it could be sucessfully argued that if Bonds had not crossed home plate before Murphy was in receipt of the ball, the value of the ball was no different than any other baseball hit into the stands, So it is critical to determine if receipt of the ball was before or after Bond crossed homeplate for tax purposes before consiudering any tax implications of acquiring the historic ball. There are rules in baseball and there is the Internal Revenue Code and the rules of baseball cannot be ignored in this case. Cheers,
WDK
Moderator: You are misquoting me. I referred to something else as taxable upon receipt.
To the best of my knowlege, the value of the ball has yet to be established. Your question about the timing of crossing home plate is at best frivilous. There is only obvious rules in Baseball applicable here would be if he failed to touch a base, passed a runner while rounding the bases, or ran the bases backwards. Since there has been no appeal, those issues are moot. There are provisions in the IRC for taxing the acquisition of wealth by chance. They have never been applied to catching an historic home run ball.