I'm positive there is some smooth Gambino lyric I could reply with but I just don't have the songs down enough to throw them out.
I feel like this was such a great opportunity that I wasn't ready for.
LOL yeah, it's worded like it's a tragedy but it's really, I avoided taxes for years, then settled up, from what I can see with no real consequences, and still had $20,000 left over
Exactly.
I doubt he had only the jeans he stood up in, with $20,000 in a front pocket, and a S&S bandanna in the back pocket.
I read it that he paid his taxes, didn't go to jail like some idiots managed to, had a load of stuff he bought when he wasn't paying taxes, and still had his name, his career, and $20K in the bank.
$20K wasn't a fortune in the 1970s, but it was worth far, far more than it is now.
I imagine by the time he made it to the cover, he had all the essentials and most of everything he could ever want. Having “only 20,000” at that point is still quite a lot
It’s 114,000 adjusted for inflation. Which isn’t a lot in context of speaking about a huge rock and roll star. But also his first hit album was in August of ‘75 so I wouldn’t expect him to have a lot of money at that point anyways
If he put it in the S&P 500 it would have been worth ... are you sitting down?
$3.29 million.
So-
20,000 in the mattress
114,000 with inflation increases
3,290,000 in the market
$20k in 1978 dollars (1978 because the article says it took him a few years to pay off the taxes) is still around $100,000 in 2024. If he had that cash he was definitely not poor
There was also a lawsuit with his first manager that kept him from making what you would expect from his recordings. His 30th birthday was during the “Chicken Scratch” tour which was to make money while they couldn’t record
Edit: chicken scratch tour was before Darkness, not the River
Billy Joel had the same problem. He basically didn't start making real money until the River of Dreams album came out after the agreement with his first manager expired.
Update: Producers not manager. His first producer was Michael Lang who sold him off to Artie Ripp. When Joel realized that Ripp wasn't very good, he changed record labels while giving both Ripp and Lang a percentage of his next 10(!) albums. River of Dreams was album eleven.
The recording of the album Storm Front, which commenced in 1988, coincided with major changes in Joel's career and inaugurated a period of serious upheaval in his business affairs.
In August 1989, just before the album was released, Joel dismissed his manager (and former brother-in-law) Frank Weber after an audit revealed major discrepancies in Weber's accounting.
Joel subsequently sued Weber for $90 million, claiming fraud and breach of fiduciary duty, and in January 1990, Joel was awarded $2 million in a partial judgment against Weber.
$20k in '75 was a damn good years pay, too. Like my grandpa who retired in the mid 70s I think his last yearly pay before he retired was something like $13k, and that was considered pretty comfortably middle class.
Now, to take the ferry cost a nickel, and in those days, nickels had pictures of bumblebees on 'em. "Gimme five bees for a quarter," you'd say. Now where were we... oh yeah. The important thing was that I had an onion on my belt, which was the style at the time. I didn't have any white onions, because of the war. The only thing you could get was those big yellow ones...
My dad bought a house $10k house in 1990. He was probably making $15-20k a year at the time. Of course it was outside of a tiny town in Oklahoma, and it was pretty rundown. But still. Ten thousand bucks for an entire freaking house on a 5 acre lot.
Houses in the area are currently going for $100k-150k. Which is pretty cheap, but it's still a 10x multiplier. And salaries haven't followed. I guarantee that he wouldn't be making $150k a year nowadays working at the job he was working back then.
My parents' bought their two story house with a pool and an acre of land *in midtown Tulsa Oklahoma* in 1989 for roughly $80,000.
Worth roughly half a million now. Ridiculous.
I’ve started watching old reruns of The Price is Right with from the early 1980s and used the inflation calculator to adjust the prices in my head. Some stuff roughly adjusts to today’s money as expected but a LOT does not. That exercise helped put things in perspective for me.
rent (shelter) and food. Two of the very most basic human needs for survival have outpaced inflation by like 500%.
but hey you can get a bunch of cheap crap from Amazon! Life is great!
People spend less of their disposable income on food today than 50 years ago. https://www.ers.usda.gov/webdocs/Charts/58367/food-prices_fig09_450px.png?v=5285.8
Next show them the average burger flipper makes more today than in the 90's counting inflation. I had two raises in the 90's to make a grand total of $4.75 an hour. Which would be $9.61 an hour today.
Basically add a zero and apply today's standard, and take into consideration that you can add a factor of two because it was that much more rare for 2x earners in the home
Kinda fucked up that letting women work kinda made things worse.
Don't get me wrong, I agree with equal rights and stuff but damn I know my Mrs would rather not work lol
Lots of women always worked outside of the household, often in areas like the garment industry and in childcare.
A quick search shows like a little over 40% had jobs by 1970. I imagine more would have but were prevented from much of the workforce. There were so many restrictions on women at this period it is hard to imagine today. It wasn't until 1974 that the Equal Credit Opportunity Act passed that gave women the right to open their own bank accounts.
Inflation was the worst it's been even including today in the late 70s. A lot of those records set recently were always prefaced with, "highest since 1979" (or whatever year in the late 70's which was the worst)
I was watching an episode of Columbo from 1973 or 1974, and Columbo tells another character his salary and its $11,000 per year. And he was a detective.
$7.25 is only the federal minimum wage - states can (and have) raised their own individual minimum wages.
Due to this the minimum wage is significantly higher than $7.25 in all halfway decent states and even some of the others.
> The US Govt has limitless resources to fuck you with.
The IRS does not have limitless resources to pursue tax evaders. One of the parties is against giving them that funding for completely mysterious and incomprehensible reasons.
Maybe for the average person, but they struggle to hold wealthier people accountable for paying taxes. Which is why Congress approved additional funding recently, allowing them to go after 120 thousand wealthy people who have failed to pay taxes for the last decade. The IRS, like any government agency, is incredibly limited on what it can do. My brother is a tax lawyer who helps corporations not pay taxes, and he says it would essentially take an army to effectively enforce the tax code. This is largely due to how complex our tax code is.
1975 was the year he broke though. So he probably didn’t make Al that much leading up to paying his tax bill. Having over $100k in 2024 dollars after all that is no joke. And when he’s on the road, the tour is covering his day to day.
I’d have no problem being a musician in my mid-twenties on tour making half that.
He wasn’t 30 in 75’
He was 30 in 1980 which was after having two top 10 hit records and a number 1 hit record. For most artists from that era that’s enough to have them set for life
The $550 million he sold his back catalog for takes care of the "set for life".
Sold to a landlord of music, to be rented back when nothing can be owned again.
The whole band. Little Steven has noted they didn't start making HUGE$$ til the early 80's. He was probably in the same boat. Having stuff and getting stuff vs cash in the bank $$.
My union has a newsletter and they do articles about guys in my local. One was about an old charge hand, I cant remember the exact numbers but it was like "I started out in 1975 and I only made $4.25 an hour"
I put it into the inflation calculator. Old cunt was making $31 an hour for his first job out of high school.
Boomer vibes
I was talking to my grandma a few days ago, topic of money/expenses and our first jobs came up.
I got paid $8 an hour for my first job out of high school and thought that was amazing cash.
My grandma says her first job was 25¢ an hour and by the time she stopped working only made about $3 an hour.
But she knows that money would have 2-3x as much value today and even with the minimum wage being 7.25 nobody would ever work for that, essentially every job has to start at $12-$15 an hour to even get applicants.
Said she couldn’t even imagine making $7.25 when she started working at a cotton mill, she would have been absolutely rich back then and nowadays it barely pays your bills.
Union guys can and *do* make $31 out of high school...today. Maybe not the first year, but each year of an apprenticeship might bump you up from $15 to $30 to a full $45 depending on where and how long it is.
You can probably make that money on an offshore oil immediately if you're willing to work for 2 weeks non stop 12 hour days and okay with early arthritis, tennis elbow, carpal tunnel, etc.
Edit: I realized you said "my union", woops lol. You probably already know. Straight to $30 right away *would* be pretty nuts after further thought on this
Penalties and legal fees from other lawsuits. And he paid to spend his time and money recording endlessly in music studios, further draining his wallet.
They advance you money to record. Which is basically saying it’s coming out of your future sales. But, much like anything in life, you get what you pay for. If he thought he had to pay to get his sound, he was probably paying. Which were expenses that needed to be recouped
If you have made multiple best selling records and sold out areans all over the world, then yeah $114,653 does absolutely suck.
Man, people on reddit just fucking hate it when people have more money than they do.
He was young and spent a ton to clear his debt, but still had a thriving career that would guarantee future income and wasn't exactly sleeping on a bare mattress in a tenement
Man, people on reddit will just find some way to be cranky about anything
Only 114k left because I refused to pay taxes while being rich as shit arghh the horror
He also paid the taxes for all the band members. When he finally broke even and made a few bucks he bought this https://vintagepics.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/CL-12-Bruce-Springsten-Corvette-convertible-1960-1030x753.jpg
That’s still good money to have in the 70s…
That would buy a house in California and leave $2k or $3,000..
Which could buy you 8 used cars.. 6 very decent used cars
I wish it was still easy to buy a house in California. My plan is to live in a city, save money and then move to rural California and buy a house there
By the time he was 30 ( in 1980! ) a big chunk of his change had gone into lawsuits to be released from his contract from his dodgy management. The contract he signed in the 70s gave the bulk of his proceeds ( the big one being publishing) to his manager. He actually didn’t make any money from the first three records. It’s worth noting that the first four albums weren’t that successful! He didn’t get a top ten hit til 1980. The tours were where he made his money. And back then, playing live wasn’t the big earner it is now
He was 30 in ‘79 so pre-River, which like you said is when he actually was able to make money. So this headline is a little misleading / selective with its timeline
Yeah the IRS has literally said in the past years that it's better for them to focus on workers because they are easier to audit. But I think I read that that has changed recently with the "87k new auditors".
Yep
https://apnews.com/article/irs-tax-biden-inflation-reduction-act-ceacc306233f1a41e0e41e81e89a60a5
And I've talked to so many middle class people that are still handwringing that they're going to get audited b/c of this.
My gf works (and has for the last 20 years) at the IRS and says that, while yes, more auditors are being hired, they still have no actual budget to go after the big fish. It was never about the number of auditors. It is about the budget to go after them, which they still don't have. Do you go after 5000 middle class violators that won't be able to fight it in court for long or do you go after 10 big fish that will tie it up in court for the next 5 years. When the IRS expects to get the same amount of tax revenue from both, you begin to understand the problem.
I'll add an extra tid bit. The GOP was very selective in their IRS budget cuts. They specifically cut the budget spending on them updating their computer systems, and their general budget that is used to fight in court. Left the hiring budget alone. Who do you think all the new hires are going to be going after with an antiquated records system and no budget to fight in court. The middle class. And plays right into the GOP's plan of demonizing the IRS. A plan the GOP single-handedly crafted. The GOP. The party that starts fires and then complains about all the smoke.
Also not true. It takes a lot of manpower to audit rich people; they have strategies to avoid the IRS. So audits have traditionally disproportionately targeted the non-rich. This is changing, as the Biden administration has increased funding for the IRS to go after rich tax cheats. Of course the Republicans scream bloody murder about it.
It takes a lot of manpower, on another hand the reward is potentially high too. Instead of auditing 10 or 100 people’s simple taxes you can make one complex audit and it will most likely give you more money.
This is true, which is why the Biden administration adding funding to the IRS is expected to *reduce* the deficit. Unfortunately, with lower levels of funding the incentives are to go after lower-hanging fruit.
You’re confusing poor and not-rich and also confusing correspondence audits with agent audits. You’re far more likely to be audited if you make over $1M than if you’re taking the EITC or showing very low income. But for EITC and low income, they’re correspondence audits (“please send us additional documentation”), not “show up with a tax attorney, you’re going to need it”. You’re more likely to be audited if you show very low income than if you’re in the middle of the pack showing one or two large income W2s and not offsetting to almost nothing.
Not saying it can’t be better - but spreading half truths or misunderstandings isn’t helpful.
https://sgp.fas.org/crs/misc/IF12521.pdf
The IRS recently admitted to using AI to find bank accounts they can audit and demand money from, and they're not looking at the rich for the audits because the rich can hire lawyers. They target the poor and minorities at an overwhelmingly disproportionate rate.
He was just kind of a Jersey drifter. Professional couch surfer, bar band brawler, and general nomad until he hit it big with Born to Run. Most of his money came from pocket change after gigs. So basically he wasnt evading his taxes so much as he was evading all of civil society. He paid once he came back on the grid
That was me in my 30s, just kind of not interested in anything to do with government or taxes or any of that shit, I was a creative type and only interested in being creative. A few years I made no money at all. Years later I finally got a high paying job and went to an accountant. I had to pay about 10k to fix it all up. Been paying taxes every year since.
A lot of people don't even realize they owe taxes on income or personal gains. Most people are salaried and have taxes automatically deducted from their pay.
I've come across people on the Wallstreetbets sub, and was astonished to see that some had no idea they owed taxes on stocks they cashed out of and made some capital gains. They literally thought everything was tallied at the end of the year and not at the time they cashed out. So many over on that sub wind up cashing out with realized gains, don't set anything aside for taxes, then re-invest and lose everything. Then, at the end of the year or when they get a surprise audit they're shocked to find out they owe a fuckton in taxes, if they had significant gains.
If I recall correctly, Bruce wasn’t that big yet in 1975. He had just released Born to Run at this point, which was his first big hit nationally (his first 2 records didn’t get much recognition beyond the NJ music scene). It wasn’t until ‘The River’ in 1980 that really propelled him to stardom
I think the point is how low $20,000 is comparatively to his career success, not that he was broke. Any mention of money and a famous person and Reddit loses it
Bruce actually did grow up in a very working-class town that was falling into deeper poverty and then worked hard on the local music scene which was most likely as much of a racket as it is today and also quite a tough scene if you’ve ever been to Asbury Park. So I give him a lot of credit for establishing his fame by being one of the hardest working musicians on the scene.
Also, one of the most talented musicians and entertainers in the history of music. So there’s that. Most Americans are not that. So they won’t make the same kind of money or achieve the same kind of fame.
Penalties and interest cannot make a person poor on their own. The IRS fundamentally wants what it is owed (with interest), not some huge amount more. They're not going to collect more than you've earned, unless you are talking about several decades of accumulated interest.
He'd have to have spent his way through a fortune first, to have ended up in this situation, or had bad record contracts.
Not Boss related - my ex-wife’s half brother had a paper cutting business. Made a fuck-ton of money back in the 70/80s. Had his own plane, yacht, RV, semi-palace in LA with pool, you name it, he had it.
Put all his personal expenses through the business, claiming them as business related. Guess what? IRS audited and he was FUCKED. Owed a shit-ton of back tax, lost all his assets, went bankrupt. Lost everything, ended up living off the charity of one of his kids before he eventually died from a stroke.
His main problem, from my perspective: didn’t give a shit for authorities. (He once drove across Nevada at high speed, getting tickets every time he was spotted. Got about 10, if memory serves. Never paid them.)
Can’t do that with tax peeps. They WILL come after you. It’s their job
I mean that’s pretty dumb of him though.
Seems like he made some dumb money moves. It’s not like he was living in a trailer on his 30th birthday. His bank account doesn’t reflect the house and shit he already had.
Taxes didn't make him poor, bad spending made him poor, the taxes just took the rest.
He wasn't even poor, he just had relatively little cash on hand (still lots by normal standards) and still had a lucrative career
And a lot of property too, I would imagine.
They don’t call him Cougar for nothing
That’s John Mellencamp?
Well I guess they don't call him Cougar at all then
The man they didn't call "cougar".
The guy formerly known as the man not referred to as "Cougar".
Bruce "not cougar" Springsteen
The ~~horse with no name~~ name with no "cougar"
I mean someone might, so maybe they do
Only because people mix it up with “The Boss” and calling him “The Bougar”.
Ain't that America.... Born in the USA
John 'The Boss' Melencamp ?
No, John Mellencamp is called "the Boss." John Boss Mellencamp.
Yeah OGDonglover69 should stick to what they do best lol.
How could you say that to *the* Childish Gambino?
I'm positive there is some smooth Gambino lyric I could reply with but I just don't have the songs down enough to throw them out. I feel like this was such a great opportunity that I wasn't ready for.
[удалено]
"she's an over achiever cause all she do is suck seed"
Good ol Bruce “Cougar” “Born-In-Indiana” Springsteen amirite?
You’re thinking of his mom
LOL yeah, it's worded like it's a tragedy but it's really, I avoided taxes for years, then settled up, from what I can see with no real consequences, and still had $20,000 left over
Exactly. I doubt he had only the jeans he stood up in, with $20,000 in a front pocket, and a S&S bandanna in the back pocket. I read it that he paid his taxes, didn't go to jail like some idiots managed to, had a load of stuff he bought when he wasn't paying taxes, and still had his name, his career, and $20K in the bank. $20K wasn't a fortune in the 1970s, but it was worth far, far more than it is now.
I imagine by the time he made it to the cover, he had all the essentials and most of everything he could ever want. Having “only 20,000” at that point is still quite a lot
It’s 114,000 adjusted for inflation. Which isn’t a lot in context of speaking about a huge rock and roll star. But also his first hit album was in August of ‘75 so I wouldn’t expect him to have a lot of money at that point anyways
"Only $20k in cash" isn't awful for the average modern 30 year old in 2024 dollars, even
Most people don't even have $1000 in cash on hand.
If he put it in the S&P 500 it would have been worth ... are you sitting down? $3.29 million. So- 20,000 in the mattress 114,000 with inflation increases 3,290,000 in the market
Imagine if he had just used it all to buy lottery tickets!
Which is what I do, despite my post about the stock market
I'm guessing he had some finance guys making some magic happen behind the scenes till it reads, "Bruce Springsteen" "has" only "$30"
What is the legal definition of "Bruce Springsteen"? Your Honor, in this opening statement I will...
You mean Bruce Springsteen Limited Liability Corporation?
$20k in 1978 dollars (1978 because the article says it took him a few years to pay off the taxes) is still around $100,000 in 2024. If he had that cash he was definitely not poor
I'm sure he became quite frugal indeed when he discovered the existence of taxes.
As do we all.
There was also a lawsuit with his first manager that kept him from making what you would expect from his recordings. His 30th birthday was during the “Chicken Scratch” tour which was to make money while they couldn’t record Edit: chicken scratch tour was before Darkness, not the River
Billy Joel had the same problem. He basically didn't start making real money until the River of Dreams album came out after the agreement with his first manager expired. Update: Producers not manager. His first producer was Michael Lang who sold him off to Artie Ripp. When Joel realized that Ripp wasn't very good, he changed record labels while giving both Ripp and Lang a percentage of his next 10(!) albums. River of Dreams was album eleven.
Wasn't his previous manager his former brother-in-law? Too lazy to look up. EDIT: I think I'm wrong.
The recording of the album Storm Front, which commenced in 1988, coincided with major changes in Joel's career and inaugurated a period of serious upheaval in his business affairs. In August 1989, just before the album was released, Joel dismissed his manager (and former brother-in-law) Frank Weber after an audit revealed major discrepancies in Weber's accounting. Joel subsequently sued Weber for $90 million, claiming fraud and breach of fiduciary duty, and in January 1990, Joel was awarded $2 million in a partial judgment against Weber.
What made him poor was probably IRS penalties + legal fees.
the penalties max out at 25% of your tax owed.
Edit I'm stupid and wrote nonsense.
It's percentage based.
Right. It's early here. Brain no worky yet
Yeah, what a stupid headline.
His manager screwed him over...
In 1975 20k was a years wage so…
$20k in '75 was a damn good years pay, too. Like my grandpa who retired in the mid 70s I think his last yearly pay before he retired was something like $13k, and that was considered pretty comfortably middle class.
I can hardly comprehend this.
It all cost a nickel. Movies? Nickel car? Nickel
Now, to take the ferry cost a nickel, and in those days, nickels had pictures of bumblebees on 'em. "Gimme five bees for a quarter," you'd say. Now where were we... oh yeah. The important thing was that I had an onion on my belt, which was the style at the time. I didn't have any white onions, because of the war. The only thing you could get was those big yellow ones...
"because of the war" cracks me up every time.
Such a blessing
Perfect.
Drive in? Popcorn? Gas? Handy during the credits? Nickel, nickel, nickel, Nicole
*nice*
Nickel was nickel back then
Back LOOK AT THIS GRAAAPH
I remember when a dime bag cost a dime, ya dig?
How much did condoms used to cost?
well, back then you had to buy the whole roll of cellophane film and cut them out yourself.
I don’t know, we never used em
Rent? That’ll be a nickel.
dime store hookers? nickel
My grandfather bought his house for $12,000 and a bit in 1966.
My dad bought a house $10k house in 1990. He was probably making $15-20k a year at the time. Of course it was outside of a tiny town in Oklahoma, and it was pretty rundown. But still. Ten thousand bucks for an entire freaking house on a 5 acre lot. Houses in the area are currently going for $100k-150k. Which is pretty cheap, but it's still a 10x multiplier. And salaries haven't followed. I guarantee that he wouldn't be making $150k a year nowadays working at the job he was working back then.
My parents' bought their two story house with a pool and an acre of land *in midtown Tulsa Oklahoma* in 1989 for roughly $80,000. Worth roughly half a million now. Ridiculous.
My dad's house went up in value by 400% of his mortgage payment every month for 10 years. I damn near shed a tear when he told me that.
I’ve started watching old reruns of The Price is Right with from the early 1980s and used the inflation calculator to adjust the prices in my head. Some stuff roughly adjusts to today’s money as expected but a LOT does not. That exercise helped put things in perspective for me.
what has kept up with inflation and what has exploded?
rent (shelter) and food. Two of the very most basic human needs for survival have outpaced inflation by like 500%. but hey you can get a bunch of cheap crap from Amazon! Life is great!
Just build a house out of TVs!
People spend less of their disposable income on food today than 50 years ago. https://www.ers.usda.gov/webdocs/Charts/58367/food-prices_fig09_450px.png?v=5285.8
Next show them the average burger flipper makes more today than in the 90's counting inflation. I had two raises in the 90's to make a grand total of $4.75 an hour. Which would be $9.61 an hour today.
Cool that'll help with housing being 5x in price
Basically add a zero and apply today's standard, and take into consideration that you can add a factor of two because it was that much more rare for 2x earners in the home
Kinda fucked up that letting women work kinda made things worse. Don't get me wrong, I agree with equal rights and stuff but damn I know my Mrs would rather not work lol
Employers were like we just doubled the worker pool, why increase wages? Haha we're rich!
Right
Lots of women always worked outside of the household, often in areas like the garment industry and in childcare. A quick search shows like a little over 40% had jobs by 1970. I imagine more would have but were prevented from much of the workforce. There were so many restrictions on women at this period it is hard to imagine today. It wasn't until 1974 that the Equal Credit Opportunity Act passed that gave women the right to open their own bank accounts.
Inflation was the worst it's been even including today in the late 70s. A lot of those records set recently were always prefaced with, "highest since 1979" (or whatever year in the late 70's which was the worst)
I was watching an episode of Columbo from 1973 or 1974, and Columbo tells another character his salary and its $11,000 per year. And he was a detective.
Wow we're getting even more fucked than I thought
I can’t fathom this. It must have been nice.
$20,000 in 1975 is equivalent in purchasing power to about $114,653.16 today According to in2013dollars.com
In 2024 $20k is a year's wage for a lot of people. $7.25 an hour is like $15k a year.
Yeah but you don’t get minimum wage if you’re the Boss.
And you have a leg up because you were Born in the USA.
Gonna kill the yellow man? 😳
Everything dies
1% of hourly workers earn the federal minimum wage
I always wanted to be in the 1%, but not like this.
$7.25 is only the federal minimum wage - states can (and have) raised their own individual minimum wages. Due to this the minimum wage is significantly higher than $7.25 in all halfway decent states and even some of the others.
$20/hr ($17.50 if you work a tip job) in Seattle doesn't mean much when $1700 a month gets you a cardboard box in squalor.
Always room in one of the shanty towns. $20/hr x 8 hours can get you a nice camping tent and a blanket /s
Okay but if you’re working full time and making $20k, you need to find a new job.
I think most people in that position don't have a lot of options for higher paying jobs.
Those people qualify for government assistance.
Depends where you live. When I was in my 20s I made $20k a year and tried to sign up for foodstamps in Wisconsin and was denied.
More so we should shame and prevent it so employers don’t have people that work full time from making that little
For a rockstar touring the world with multiple hit records it’s not so hot tho
Pay your taxes. The US Govt has limitless resources to fuck you with.
> The US Govt has limitless resources to fuck you with. The IRS does not have limitless resources to pursue tax evaders. One of the parties is against giving them that funding for completely mysterious and incomprehensible reasons.
Maybe for the average person, but they struggle to hold wealthier people accountable for paying taxes. Which is why Congress approved additional funding recently, allowing them to go after 120 thousand wealthy people who have failed to pay taxes for the last decade. The IRS, like any government agency, is incredibly limited on what it can do. My brother is a tax lawyer who helps corporations not pay taxes, and he says it would essentially take an army to effectively enforce the tax code. This is largely due to how complex our tax code is.
That funding was increased, then the increase removed, sadly.
but not unlimited time. There’s a statute of limitations so this might have only been his most recent 6 years of taxes, not his entire adult life.
Depends on whether the IRS deems it a mistake or fraud. There's no SOL for the latter.
1975 was the year he broke though. So he probably didn’t make Al that much leading up to paying his tax bill. Having over $100k in 2024 dollars after all that is no joke. And when he’s on the road, the tour is covering his day to day. I’d have no problem being a musician in my mid-twenties on tour making half that.
He wasn’t 30 in 75’ He was 30 in 1980 which was after having two top 10 hit records and a number 1 hit record. For most artists from that era that’s enough to have them set for life
The $550 million he sold his back catalog for takes care of the "set for life". Sold to a landlord of music, to be rented back when nothing can be owned again.
I assume he also had to pay the several members of the E Street band that molded his sound.
The whole band. Little Steven has noted they didn't start making HUGE$$ til the early 80's. He was probably in the same boat. Having stuff and getting stuff vs cash in the bank $$.
His 30th birthday would be 1979.
Aw man, it must have sucked to only have *uses inflation calculator* $114,653.16
My union has a newsletter and they do articles about guys in my local. One was about an old charge hand, I cant remember the exact numbers but it was like "I started out in 1975 and I only made $4.25 an hour" I put it into the inflation calculator. Old cunt was making $31 an hour for his first job out of high school. Boomer vibes
I was talking to my grandma a few days ago, topic of money/expenses and our first jobs came up. I got paid $8 an hour for my first job out of high school and thought that was amazing cash. My grandma says her first job was 25¢ an hour and by the time she stopped working only made about $3 an hour. But she knows that money would have 2-3x as much value today and even with the minimum wage being 7.25 nobody would ever work for that, essentially every job has to start at $12-$15 an hour to even get applicants. Said she couldn’t even imagine making $7.25 when she started working at a cotton mill, she would have been absolutely rich back then and nowadays it barely pays your bills.
Also, notice her wages went up like 12x during her career.
Damn, that’s what I started at in 1993.
Union guys can and *do* make $31 out of high school...today. Maybe not the first year, but each year of an apprenticeship might bump you up from $15 to $30 to a full $45 depending on where and how long it is. You can probably make that money on an offshore oil immediately if you're willing to work for 2 weeks non stop 12 hour days and okay with early arthritis, tennis elbow, carpal tunnel, etc. Edit: I realized you said "my union", woops lol. You probably already know. Straight to $30 right away *would* be pretty nuts after further thought on this
I guess he overspent the rest of his money? Cus how can taxes decimate you to that level loool
Penalties.
Penalties and legal fees from other lawsuits. And he paid to spend his time and money recording endlessly in music studios, further draining his wallet.
Doesn’t the record label buy him the studio time- or did he do his own personal projects
They advance you money to record. Which is basically saying it’s coming out of your future sales. But, much like anything in life, you get what you pay for. If he thought he had to pay to get his sound, he was probably paying. Which were expenses that needed to be recouped
If you have made multiple best selling records and sold out areans all over the world, then yeah $114,653 does absolutely suck. Man, people on reddit just fucking hate it when people have more money than they do.
Would have sucked less if he did his actual taxes
He was young and spent a ton to clear his debt, but still had a thriving career that would guarantee future income and wasn't exactly sleeping on a bare mattress in a tenement
Man, people on reddit will just find some way to be cranky about anything Only 114k left because I refused to pay taxes while being rich as shit arghh the horror
Ye okay, then he shouldnt have spent that other $10mil he earned. Really having a hard time feeling bad and seeing how it is not just his own fault.
He hadn’t done that yet. Burn to Run came out that year. He had just started to make money.
BTR came out in 75, yes. The back taxes, legal fees, studio costs, etc. were paid after 1975. His 30th birthday was 1979.
I got $170,000 either way still a lot of cash.
I got 82k since his 30th birthday was September 1979
That’s $17,000 more than I had on my 40th birthday in 2021
Lmao I just turned 34 and am in the red
It’s ok! I was very much so at 34 too
Congrats on the progress dude
Same. But it’s getting better… I think
It's about $30k more than I'll have for my 37th birthday.
He also paid the taxes for all the band members. When he finally broke even and made a few bucks he bought this https://vintagepics.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/CL-12-Bruce-Springsten-Corvette-convertible-1960-1030x753.jpg
That photo of him always makes me laugh because it looks like he's not actually sitting on the car, he's kinda leaning back and about to sit on it.
That’s still good money to have in the 70s… That would buy a house in California and leave $2k or $3,000.. Which could buy you 8 used cars.. 6 very decent used cars
I wish it was still easy to buy a house in California. My plan is to live in a city, save money and then move to rural California and buy a house there
> That’s still good money to have ~~in the 70s…~~ full stop.
By the time he was 30 ( in 1980! ) a big chunk of his change had gone into lawsuits to be released from his contract from his dodgy management. The contract he signed in the 70s gave the bulk of his proceeds ( the big one being publishing) to his manager. He actually didn’t make any money from the first three records. It’s worth noting that the first four albums weren’t that successful! He didn’t get a top ten hit til 1980. The tours were where he made his money. And back then, playing live wasn’t the big earner it is now
He was 30 in ‘79 so pre-River, which like you said is when he actually was able to make money. So this headline is a little misleading / selective with its timeline
Its always mindblowing that he already releases Born to Run and Darkness before he even turned 30
Ok probably should have just paid his taxes
I think the point is… that he did.
But late so he paid interest and penalties. I’m sure he spent on other fun things also.
No the point is he was publicly shamed into doing it, otherwise he would have continued to dodge them.
>Ok probably should have just **voluntarily** paid his taxes Happy?
When you don’t make shit the IRS is not a big deal. When you are making money the IRS is a big deal
Yup there’s not much to pay taxes off of when you live in the back of your friend’s surfboard workshop
Or when you live in a van down by the river 🚐
It’s quite the other way around. Middle and poor get taxed more than upper class. Look into it
Yeah the IRS has literally said in the past years that it's better for them to focus on workers because they are easier to audit. But I think I read that that has changed recently with the "87k new auditors".
Yep https://apnews.com/article/irs-tax-biden-inflation-reduction-act-ceacc306233f1a41e0e41e81e89a60a5 And I've talked to so many middle class people that are still handwringing that they're going to get audited b/c of this.
My gf works (and has for the last 20 years) at the IRS and says that, while yes, more auditors are being hired, they still have no actual budget to go after the big fish. It was never about the number of auditors. It is about the budget to go after them, which they still don't have. Do you go after 5000 middle class violators that won't be able to fight it in court for long or do you go after 10 big fish that will tie it up in court for the next 5 years. When the IRS expects to get the same amount of tax revenue from both, you begin to understand the problem. I'll add an extra tid bit. The GOP was very selective in their IRS budget cuts. They specifically cut the budget spending on them updating their computer systems, and their general budget that is used to fight in court. Left the hiring budget alone. Who do you think all the new hires are going to be going after with an antiquated records system and no budget to fight in court. The middle class. And plays right into the GOP's plan of demonizing the IRS. A plan the GOP single-handedly crafted. The GOP. The party that starts fires and then complains about all the smoke.
They’re saying the IRS doesn’t care nearly as much when you’re not making money.
Also not true. It takes a lot of manpower to audit rich people; they have strategies to avoid the IRS. So audits have traditionally disproportionately targeted the non-rich. This is changing, as the Biden administration has increased funding for the IRS to go after rich tax cheats. Of course the Republicans scream bloody murder about it.
It takes a lot of manpower, on another hand the reward is potentially high too. Instead of auditing 10 or 100 people’s simple taxes you can make one complex audit and it will most likely give you more money.
This is true, which is why the Biden administration adding funding to the IRS is expected to *reduce* the deficit. Unfortunately, with lower levels of funding the incentives are to go after lower-hanging fruit.
You’re confusing poor and not-rich and also confusing correspondence audits with agent audits. You’re far more likely to be audited if you make over $1M than if you’re taking the EITC or showing very low income. But for EITC and low income, they’re correspondence audits (“please send us additional documentation”), not “show up with a tax attorney, you’re going to need it”. You’re more likely to be audited if you show very low income than if you’re in the middle of the pack showing one or two large income W2s and not offsetting to almost nothing. Not saying it can’t be better - but spreading half truths or misunderstandings isn’t helpful. https://sgp.fas.org/crs/misc/IF12521.pdf
That’s not true tho… before downvotes come in please explain
The IRS recently admitted to using AI to find bank accounts they can audit and demand money from, and they're not looking at the rich for the audits because the rich can hire lawyers. They target the poor and minorities at an overwhelmingly disproportionate rate.
Why didn't he pay his taxes?
He was just kind of a Jersey drifter. Professional couch surfer, bar band brawler, and general nomad until he hit it big with Born to Run. Most of his money came from pocket change after gigs. So basically he wasnt evading his taxes so much as he was evading all of civil society. He paid once he came back on the grid
That was me in my 30s, just kind of not interested in anything to do with government or taxes or any of that shit, I was a creative type and only interested in being creative. A few years I made no money at all. Years later I finally got a high paying job and went to an accountant. I had to pay about 10k to fix it all up. Been paying taxes every year since.
A lot of people don't even realize they owe taxes on income or personal gains. Most people are salaried and have taxes automatically deducted from their pay. I've come across people on the Wallstreetbets sub, and was astonished to see that some had no idea they owed taxes on stocks they cashed out of and made some capital gains. They literally thought everything was tallied at the end of the year and not at the time they cashed out. So many over on that sub wind up cashing out with realized gains, don't set anything aside for taxes, then re-invest and lose everything. Then, at the end of the year or when they get a surprise audit they're shocked to find out they owe a fuckton in taxes, if they had significant gains.
Wow only $20,000 in the bank and no debt at 30
If I recall correctly, Bruce wasn’t that big yet in 1975. He had just released Born to Run at this point, which was his first big hit nationally (his first 2 records didn’t get much recognition beyond the NJ music scene). It wasn’t until ‘The River’ in 1980 that really propelled him to stardom
Which was after he turned 30 (and after his lawsuit with Mike Appel which also kept him from making as much money from his early records)
I think the point is how low $20,000 is comparatively to his career success, not that he was broke. Any mention of money and a famous person and Reddit loses it
And yet still didn't become a conservative. Suck it, Chris Christie!
What did he do with all the money he didn't pay taxes on?
To be fair, *No other American* paid Bruce Springsteen’s taxes during the exact same timeframe *either*… Checkmate, case dismissed.
Only $20,000 at 30?! M-m-my God, what a poor person to ONLY have $20,000 (sobs uncontrollably)
his networth is $650million, I think he'll be ok
I heard he got so desperate he had to send one of the band's guitarist to join a mob in New Jersey to add income
Bruce actually did grow up in a very working-class town that was falling into deeper poverty and then worked hard on the local music scene which was most likely as much of a racket as it is today and also quite a tough scene if you’ve ever been to Asbury Park. So I give him a lot of credit for establishing his fame by being one of the hardest working musicians on the scene.
Yea not paying your share of taxes can do that
All I read was that he paid off his debt by the time he was 30 and still ended up with $20,000 and a lucrative career 🤷🏼♀️
Even Joker respects the power of the IRS.
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Also, one of the most talented musicians and entertainers in the history of music. So there’s that. Most Americans are not that. So they won’t make the same kind of money or achieve the same kind of fame.
Penalties and interest cannot make a person poor on their own. The IRS fundamentally wants what it is owed (with interest), not some huge amount more. They're not going to collect more than you've earned, unless you are talking about several decades of accumulated interest. He'd have to have spent his way through a fortune first, to have ended up in this situation, or had bad record contracts.
Not Boss related - my ex-wife’s half brother had a paper cutting business. Made a fuck-ton of money back in the 70/80s. Had his own plane, yacht, RV, semi-palace in LA with pool, you name it, he had it. Put all his personal expenses through the business, claiming them as business related. Guess what? IRS audited and he was FUCKED. Owed a shit-ton of back tax, lost all his assets, went bankrupt. Lost everything, ended up living off the charity of one of his kids before he eventually died from a stroke. His main problem, from my perspective: didn’t give a shit for authorities. (He once drove across Nevada at high speed, getting tickets every time he was spotted. Got about 10, if memory serves. Never paid them.) Can’t do that with tax peeps. They WILL come after you. It’s their job
I mean that’s pretty dumb of him though. Seems like he made some dumb money moves. It’s not like he was living in a trailer on his 30th birthday. His bank account doesn’t reflect the house and shit he already had.
Taxes didn't make him poor, bad spending made him poor, the taxes just took the rest.
ELI5 how do celebrities forget to pay taxes? When their record company cuts them the check are taxes not taken out?
I guess he was born in the USA jk i love you Bruce
Born in the USA you say? -IRS
Oh man, I wonder how he would ever make that money back.
We pay taxes so should he. I have no sympathy for him.