Comments Thread For: IRS Now Targets Manny Pacquiao For $18 Million in Debt

[Rapid Counter]

Either Bob is lying about Manny's taxes being paid, lying about withholding 30% for taxes, or lying about Manny's guaranteed purse amounts. Either way sounds like Bob is lying. Another promoter screwing a fighter out of his money. So I ask, how can you believe anything Bob has to say about a Floyd/Pac fight?

Because yesterday Bob was lying but today he is telling the truth

[puroylan]

I've been saying this for a while! That weasel Arum was gonna screw him up! Manny's too nice and unfortunately guys like Arum will take advantage of you. I hope Pacman has already hired a lawyer to find out what really happened! I cannot wait to see how Arum did it.

[619 southpaw]

That's his application for food stamps after the tax dept gets to him....

haha funny

[parrish duke]

First off there is nothing funny about this situation. Vision quest was the company that followed the paper trail and before they could go public with their findings they where fired. It is apparent that what's going on in his home country is political - now with the Vampires over - all I can do is shake my head - having to fight long past your time is sad and should not be made fun of

[OnePunch]

A few things to consider:

1. (as his promoter) Arum has NO fiduciary duty to Pacquiao. It's not his obligation to Pac to keep him out of tax trouble. Koncz does however (as his manager) have that obligation.

2. US Federal law requires that when a foreign fighter fights on US soil, the promoter must withhold 30% of the purse and forward it to the IRS.

3. In regards to #2, I would suspect (just my opinion) that the 30% was withheld and paid on the "guaranteed contract purse" only, as this would have been under the oversight of the commission. I also suspect the tax issues that are in question here are in regards to ppv upside money that was paid later, NOT the initial guaranteed purse money.

[The Gambler1981]

I don't think a lot get caught up because they think they are smarter than the system. A lot of times they actually are smarter because the system has so all sorts of holes to exploit. Really, I think most get caught up because they get too greedy. They can't keep their greed in check.

It is the old PT Barnum saying, you can fool some of the people all of the time, you can fool all of the people some of the time but you can't fool all of the people all of the time.

Part of being smart is knowing when to get out and when the game is about to change. So it becomes a matter of pride if you think you can play the game forever without getting caught up and it is usually too late when you realize how badly hubris caught up with you.

[The Gambler1981]

A few things to consider:

1. Arum has NO fiduciary duty to Pacquiao. It's not his obligation to Pac to keep him out of tax trouble.

2. US Federal law requires that when a foreign fighter fights on US soil, the promoter must withhold 30% of the purse and forward it to the IRS.

3. In regards to #2, I would suspect (just my opinion) that the 30% was withheld and paid on the "guaranteed contract purse" only, as this would have been under the oversight of the commission. I also suspect the tax issues that are in question here are in regards to ppv upside money that was paid later, NOT the initial guaranteed purse money.

I would say 3 is for sure the case and there would be a paper trail for all that.

[Heru]

This Pacquiao situation is interesting and unfortunate...

Just a few weeks ago, I recall Arum stating that they paid Pacquiao's taxes... This situation might cause Manny to really reconsider his relationships.

Also, there's an ongoing lawsuit between Pacquiao and VisionQwest because of this issue that were initial red flags:

According to a press release distributed last month, Lodge revealed, "The main reason why VQ was hired to look into the missing money was because Manny believed that his fight promoter was not paying him his fair share." Evidently, up until VisionQwest was hired in 2010, Pacquiao's taxes were handled by several different accountants who "simply plugged in numbers supplied by Michael Koncz into the taxation forms and filed them with the IRS". As Pacquiao's popularity, and more impotantly his income, continued to grow, a red flag was raised that prompted the IRS to audit his taxes for the years 2006 and 2007. At that point, Team Pacquiao reached out to VisionQwest to help resolve their tax issues, and the company quickly realized that Manny Paquiao had no true knowledge of his financial worth, missing a number of key documents, including "bout contracts, bank statements, bout proceed distributions, endorsement contracts, promoter contracts, co-promoter contracts, and property ownership records" to name a few.

http://www.fighthype.com/pages/content10979.html

That article really details where these issues are coming from. VisionQwest opened a can of worms that was never settled.

[Ringlife]

Not good Manny needs to cut off his adviser finish his contract with TR and got some big fights with GBP.

[Sugar Adam Ali]

This really is a sad situation...

Arum will walk, he is far to smart to get taken done by taxes

koncz will look like the rat, and be the fall guy, once this all shakes out,,,

Manny needs to hire visionquest back and really needs to man up and take care of his own finances instead of letting others do it and take advantage of him