Can someone expand on why Joe Louis shouldn't have been made to pay taxes...

Perhaps they felt that because he defended his title twice for bare training expenses and donated his purses to the Army and Navy relief funds and boxed hundreds of exhibitions for the War effort and War Bond Drives that he deserved special status?

 

He was basically taxed on money that he donated to the Army Navy Relief Funds, which seems a bit unfair on the face of it.

Had he arranged for the money to be paid directly to those institutions, all would have been well for him.

Because he held the money in his account, albeit briefly, it was treated as if he had spent it in the slot machines.

 

These are all reasons why it was a mortal sin to have put Joe Louis through that IRS persecution.

 

Quite aside from the particulars of his unfair treatment, the greatest heavyweight of all time should not be asked to pay taxes anyway!

 

That was still far better for him than been sent into combat and having to really risk putting his life on the line for real.

 

Louis volunteered for the Army, he didn't wait to be called up. Im not saying he shouldn't have paid taxes I'm suggesting his actions during the conflict may be the reason some felt he should have been a special case. I would also suggest most servicemen would sooner be in a theatre of war than in the ring with a ranked heavyweight contender intent on koing you.

 

Someone needs to do a List of all the Military Base champs that Louis ko'ed in WW2. ("Hey Sarge, thanks for letting me off for having to pull KP this morning...I am going to be fighting Joe Louis today at noon").

 

Yeah unless your name was Muhammad Ali. I wonder what Louis thought about Ali refusal to join up after being drafted or maybe his views on serving your country when called changed when they were continuously chasing him for taxes after he retired?

 

Louis wrote in his autobiography that he thought any US subject should be prepared to serve his country in times of conflict,and he did not approve of Ali's stance.

 

I'm not making any judgements on it, I'm just putting it out there that it might be the reason some thought Joe was a special case.

 

No KP for me today, great!

Wait, you want me to fight Louis?

I just remembered, I have to shine my boots, his boots, and his boots too. Can I shine your boots while I’m at it? I’ll pay you $2 for the privilege.

 

What i heard was that Louis was fighting for charity in some fights but the irs treated his taxes as if he was making that money instead, so they taxed him way more than he made

 

The IRS and probably every other tax branch in the world are a bunch of ****ing scumbags that will take you to the cleaners over a technicality. I have a particular loathing for my local tax office which will not hesitate to throw the book at you for "infringements" that are not even proven; you simply have to pay up and sue them in court if you have a case. I remember our company made a loss the one month, our backs were to the wall and I naively thought that the tax refund would go some way to keep us afloat for a while longer. After the tax ****ers had got through with us, we had to pay in.

Louis didn't have to donate diddly squat to the war effort. If he'd kept the money, paid the taxes, and spent it all on hoes and coke he'd actually have been better off for it. Instead the IRS picked out a technicality and dropped the hammer on the poor b****rd for trying to do the right thing.

IRS and other tax departments