Bolt Won't Return to High-Tax UK Until 2012

UK Telegraph -- "Organizers of next month's Aviva London Grand Prix at Crystal Palace had hoped to stage the first 100 meters head-to-head of the season between Bolt, Tyson Gay and Asafa Powell but the triple Olympic champion is set to shun the meeting because it would expose him to a huge tax bill. Unless the tax rules are relaxed, athletics administrators fear British fans will be denied the chance to see the sport's biggest star in action again until he returns to the capital in two years' time to defend his Olympic titles.

Since April, foreign sports stars competing in Britain are liable for a top rate of income tax of 50 percent but, controversially, the tax is charged not just on the money they earn in Britain but on a proportion of their worldwide sponsorship income."

MP: See previous CD posts on how high taxes drive highly-paid professional athletes away here, here, and here, illustrating the basic economic principle that "if you tax something, you get less of it."

HT: Kyle Stingily