Hamilton deserves more respect

What are you even talking about? Kids cry about movie deaths never mind the death of their real life idol.
A 9 year old not capable of understanding death??? Good grief...

 

While I can’t speak for every country, in the USA we tax at both the State and Federal (Country) levels. A professional athlete pays income tax in every STATE he or she competes in. One pays a strong accountant to work on the calculation (i.e. if you are in transit to a high tax state, shift the allocation of time to the low tax state you just left) and many highly paid athletes choose to call a no-to-low income tax state their main residence. Athletes get spun around with this often. Derek Jeter is a famous example; resides in Florida but played baseball for a New York based team. Guess what the state of New York did? Went after him for his pro-rata time spent in New York.
I assume this is what Hamilton is talking about. Say his base salary is $40 million USD a year, and he competes in 20 countries, his accountants would have to divide up his salary pro-rata for where he spent his time doing testing, factory work, PR, and ultimately racing. The racing part is easy: Driver works Thursday to Sunday in a particular country - write the check for tax on the daily income rate. This is why athletes live in Monaco or Switzerland so they aren’t taxed for commuting time or when they have time off.

 

George Russell is a better driver than Lewis Hamilton.

 

Put like this, taxes in he USA sound to me like a nightmare! I never realised about this pro-rata time business, although I knew about double taxation.
Over the years, I have met several US citizen settled in Europe who had renounced their nationality to avoid being taxed at home.
Even our PM, Boris Johnson, fell in that trap: because he was born in the US of British parents on temporary residence at the time, he was considered a citizen and taxed for his eanings in UK, although he never worked in the US.

 

Words are cheap, but they don't amount to much .

Russell may look good, but he has everything to prove yet.

 

That isn’t accurate. Not every state in the US has a personal income tax.

 

Don’t worry. Lois will freeze Russell out of the team.

 

George outclassed the experienced Bottas in his first Merc drive.

His future at Merc looks bright providing there's no preferential treatment regarding A Team engineers being on LH side of the garage. A dynamic that Rosberg had to endure until 2016.

 

I believe that Russell (with Norris) could be one of the stars of the future, but he has to prove it.

As for Hamilton freezing him out of the team, that's internal politics.

Soon or later, Toto Wolff will have to prepare for the future, and decide what he thinks is best for MB.

With Mercedes'rechnical advantage now in doubt, he may now wish for 2 roosters under the same roof?

 

"One swallow don't make the spring"

Russell may look promising, but nothing says he will easily adopt the Mercedes culture, be compliant, accept team orders, cooperate, etc ...

A team principal like Toto Wolff must consider these things too; it's not only about speed.

I don't think he is looking forward to drivers conflict like he had to endure with Rosberg.

Only one driver can win the WDC, and the team wants the WCC as well. They can miss both by tolerating infighting, even if that entertains the crowd.

In fact; I start wondering why people follow F1 nowadays?

 

Lewis fancies himself The Rain King, yet ol' George beat him in a Williams. Cheap, indeed.

 

Hamilton has a whole career behind him, and many races won in the rain to show for it.

Russell just posted a fabulous time in qualifs ONCE !

Anyway, you are entitled to your opinion.

 

You may not like it, but Hamilton is de facto Number One at Mercedes, so far. He is the one who brought them results and all these records.

He is the one Mercedes will push to win another WDC, and there is no need to disturb that.

I'm sure Russell would be quicker than Bottas, but you can't be compliant and challenge at the same time.

If Russell joins Mercedes, it should be with the assurance that he won't rock the boat.

 

Doesn't work like that for the rest of the world. No federal taxes. No taxes based on X days being there. In pretty much all countries you only become a tax resident after spending 186 days there in a year (in some cases living somewhere for a block of 90 days straight can also make you tax liable, but it's hard to prove). I've also never left a country after a work trip and been told I need to pay taxes on monies made whilst there. Just doesn't happen.

The Jeter example is quite different, him playing for a NYC based team, I assume he spends a lot of time in NYC (training and many games), so a strong argument can be made by the state that he is in fact employed within NY and thus has to pay his taxes there. For an F1 driver it's very different as they spend very little time working in where their team is registered, they don't train at their facilities, no testing is held at the country and only a few days of work all in: A race + a team facility visit for a few days a year. Even for Monaco/Switzerland, you do need to actually spend time living there (the aforementioned 186 days) in order to claim tax residency there. These days it's not so simple anymore as it was in the past when they rented a small apartment in Monaco, spend a few nights a month there but actually lived over the border in a villa in France.

Due to the new **** google algorithm it makes searching quite hard, but allegedly (I didn't read the original article myself) when UK HMRC (tax collectors) announced that Lewis was among the top 5000 tax payers in the UK, it apparently made reference to his employer being the high tax payer. I couldn't find the original article just 10 billion references to it and couldn't be bothered looking further, so unverified.

 

will he actually get the drive though? I mean he made a very, very strong case for it yet again last night...and Bottas' performance sure as hell didn't help himself.

 

Let us not forget Imola last year behind a safety car when Russel ate a wall.

 

A wet mop would have had the same career in that car. You are entitled to your opinion as well.

 

Preemptively building in the excuses.

If one random wet qualifying session is suddenly a definitive metric of who is faster than whom in the wet, what does is it say about the Ferrari drivers...or Alonso etc.?

 

They're not as fast in their cars as George Russell is in a Williams, either.

 

Sure I am, it's people like you who made me root for Hamilton.

I don't like people who deny a champion his success and spend all their time denigrating him.

I won't even ask you the reason for it ...

 

Oh, please. I spend plenty of time denigrating lots of other people.

 

Go on then? How many times are you going to make thinly veiled baseless accusations and get away with it?

 

Oh please. Here we go again.

People like WHO?!!

You won't "ask the reason" because you would be likely banned for posting. So again, post it or cease and desist with your insinuations.

 

Tomorrow will tell the tale.