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Thu 9 Aug, 2007 02:42 pm
I just read that the guy who caught Barry Bonds' homerun ball may hold on to it and not sell it. My question is - If he does sell it, how can he prove that the ball he sells is the actual same ball? It seems like it would be very easy to swap with another one unless he got Barry Bonds to sign it or something at the game.
I also read that he may have to pay up to 35% taxes based on about $600,000 wether he sells it or not. And if he keeps it, he may have to pay taxes on it every year as the value appreciates!
MLB usually grabs whoever snags a ball like that as quickly as possible and verifies the ball as authentic (at the same time it protects the person from getting mugged in the stands). The ball gets marked with a tiny tatoo that can be verified with MLB.
I dunno how taxes would work on such a thing initially. The annual tax for appreciation sounds entirely bogus. I beleive it falls under the standard capital gains taxes. You don't pay taxes annually if an item appreciates in value. You pay taxes when you sell an item and the taxes are based on the appreciated value during the entire time you've owned it.