Worship at the altar of the big "O"....
Posted on 09/13/2004 10:47:00 AM PDT by Feiny
Chat show queen Oprah Winfrey celebrated the opening of her 19th season on US TV today by surprising each of her 276 audience members with a new car.
We’re calling this our wildest dream season, because this year on the Oprah show, no dream is too wild, no surprise too impossible to pull off,” Winfrey said.
Making sure the audience was kept in suspense, Winfrey opened the show by calling 11 audience members onto the stage. She gave each of them a car – a Pontiac G6.
She then had gift boxes distributed to the rest of the audience and said one of the boxes contained keys to a twelfth car. But when the audience members opened the boxes, each had a set of keys.
“Everybody gets a car! Everybody gets a car! Everybody gets a car!” Winfrey yelled as she jumped up and down on the stage.
The audience members screamed, cried and hugged each other – then followed Winfrey out to the car parking of her Harpo Studios in Chicago to see their Pontiacs, all decorated with giant red bows.
The cars, which retail for £15,500, were donated by Pontiac.
“A little idea grew into a big idea,” said Mary Henige of Pontiac
Winfrey said the audience members were chosen because their friends or family had written to the show about their need for a new car. One woman’s young son said she drove a car that “looks like she got into a gunfight” another couple had almost 400,000 miles on their two vehicles.
In other segments on the show, Winfrey surprised a 20-year-old girl who had spent years in foster care and homeless shelters with a four-year college scholarship, a makeover and £6,000 in clothes. And a family with eight foster children who were going to be kicked out of their house were given £72,000 to buy and repair the home.
The Oprah Winfrey Show is syndicated to 212 domestic markets and 109 countries.
Yeah. All three of our cars are made by Honda, both here and abroad. I always consider Toyota, but end up with a Honda everytime. Other than my first car, a '66 Plymouth Barracuda, I've only owned Hondas. Why change when you love what you've got?
"Gift taxes are paid by those who give not those that receive."
And a good thing too. Otherwise, we would have had Santa Bubba come sliding down the chimney each Christmas morning demanding that the kids pay taxes on the gifts he gave them:
"Ho ho ho, kids, I'm Santa Bubba, now give me all of your allowance money or I'll have Janet Reno firebomb this house for nonpayment of tax!"
"Santa Bubba, you are so mean. Why do you say "ho ho ho" when you are such a meanie?"
"Because that's what I generally sleep with. No more! Next Christmas Eve, forget the milk and cookies -- just have your Mommy dress up in a teddy and antlers and wait by the fireplace for ol' Santa Bubba."
Wahh, wahh, wahhh. I've never seen so many Santa killers on one thread.
LOL~! I have some ideas for Oprah to test her generosity, get some tax writeoffs and make some displaced desert travler very happy indeed!
Worship at the altar of the big "O"....
My goodness Oprah has lost weight! (Or red is very slimming.)
but in order to register them you have to pay the state sales taxes based upon the manufacturer's suggested retail price. up front and in full. on 15K at 5%, that's what? three thousand dollars? how many of the people in that audience can pull out 3K?
And you have to pay annual property taxes thereupon as well - based upon the value of the car.
She like a container or passage way... kinda like the Panama Canal... Commercialism and Politicizing on one side... and hungry spiritually vapid consumers on the other....
Lol. You are so right.
5% sales tax rate would be $750. Sales taxes in Ohio are generally higher than that -- depends on the county.
Not all states have personal property taxes on cars -- Ohio doesn't.
My point that there is no tax on the gift. You can sell the car back to Pontiac or to anyone else and the cash would be tax-free. That's what I would do if I got that car as a gift.
Had they won the car on a game show, though, it's income and that is taxable. So the Feds will see quite a bit of Jeopardy Guy's winnings.
My bad, I assumed Oprah gave the cars away and didn't read the whole thing where it says Pontiac gave the cars away. Three cheers for Pontiac/GMC.
Maybe this is a mistake, but I'd like this clarified before I go ranting about how "generous" Oprah is. If Pontiac donated the cars, then all Oprah did was put bows on them.
I cannot argue with that. After all I left. There are certainly people in the hills that live in extreme poverty. It sometimes seems to me that many living on the outside(i.e. cities) feel that poverty in the hills is the norm. I feel that it is more of an exception. Btw what areas do you visit?
your math is far superior to my own. failure to perform simple math has dogged me since fourth grade. Usually I use calculators, etc. that time I used me head.
and I agree - id' sell ti back to pontiac and use the money for better things...
I can't believe the fuddy duddies on this thread. If I called up Pontiac and wanted two hundred cars for my friends, they'd call the mental hospital. The fact is that Oprah is a media powerhouse and the advertizing they get out of this is INCALCULABLE. I do not agree with some her political opinions, which aren't nearly as bad as many people out in hollyweird. She's the only talk show I will still watch after all these years. Some people can't ever be positive but complain and be JEALOUS of someone else's succees.
Were the cars gifts or prizes? The recipient pays no tax on gifts.
I don't know what its called, perhaps its just income tax then, but I know they will all have to pay tax on those cars. Forgive my lack of tax knowledge--all I know is we pay too much.
Amen!
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