Ty Pennington - Extreme Makeover: Home Edition

[gsdx]

I have no idea why HGTV Canada has picked up this programme for broadcasting, but they have. I watched it for the first time last night and I have to ask myself. . . "Does Ty Pennington really need that bullhorn?"

I mean, they were in Wyoming on last night's show and I'm sure the people in Idaho must have been able to hear him.

Someone should shove that thing down his throat or at least hide the batteries.

The show I don't really understand, either. Are they really helping people? The family last night apparently lived in a berm house which was killing them with radon gas filtering into the house through the floor. They couldn't afford to move to another place and they couldn't afford to refinance the house to fix the problem.

Big sob story.

So, what does Ty and his crew do? They blow up the house and build them a 5,000 square foot home with every bell and whistle you can think of.

Now, the parents sat there in that house for years watching their son and daughter dying from the radon gas. They didn't do a bloody thing to get them out except give everyone in TV Land some 'boo hoo' sob story that they were dying because they couldn't afford to do anything about it.

I don't know about you, but if I discovered that radon gas was seeping into my home and killing my family, I'd have their asses out of that house in an instant, even if we had to pitch a tent in a friend's back yard.

But they couldn't afford it! So, how in hell are they going to afford to keep a 5,000 square foot mansion?

Are there any follow-ups to these stories? How long do these people live in their new homes before they discover they can't even pay the electrics bill?

 

[Bruski-101]

I agree with you.I sometimes watch for eye candy.

 

[Philsy]

Wow, why are you all so bitter, or is it jealosy The show gets huge ratings, so obviously most of the general public doesn't mind seeing a family get a chance of a lifetime and having a dream home given to them. Due to the success of the show, most or all of the appliances and products are all donated just for advertising purposes and the even a mortgage company steps up and pays off the old mortgage. If you don't like seeing people working together to change the life of those less fortunate, change the frigg'n channel.

 

[gsdx]

If you don't like seeing people working together to change the life of those less fortunate, change the frigg'n channel.

I'm not being bitter. I think the show is actually counter-productive.

I don't consider the family I saw last night as 'less fortunate'. I saw the parents as stupid. How could anyone live in a home which was killing their children?

And why just give them a brand new home with a bedroom with 3 doggy doors just for their pets? Why not just tear up their basement floor and fix the problem for them? At least they'd still have the home they fell in love with and they could still afford to live there.

You know why, don't you? Ratings and the almighty dollar. Money Money Money.

 

[Jory]

I wonder how some of them can afford the taxes they will have to pay when it's over

 

[gsdx]

^ Now, that's something else I hadn't considered. I should imagine the taxes would increase immensely now that their house is worth a fortune. And it's going to cost a fortune to heat it in winter and cool it in summer.

That's what I'm saying. If the people can afford to live there, they certainly weren't as desperate as they were made out to be.

To be honest, I don't feel sorry for the family but, if everything the parents said and did is true, then I feel very sorry for the kids having parents stupid enough to make them live in a house that was killing them.

The only good thing about the show last night was the new designer with the nifty name, but I don't even think he's sexy enough to make me want to watch the programme again.

 

[DotComGuy]

I hate Ty.

Try watching . . .
- Superstar Handyman Challenge (look for Dave and those eyes)

- Canada's Worst Driver (its scary how badly they drive). To return soon
- Canada's Worst Handyman. Funny also (returns this week. )

I would like to see American versions of these shows rather some of the other reality show train wrecks there are out there

 

[gsdx]

^ Never miss Handyman. Gotta love Dave's eyes, eh? Even Mike mentioned them!

Unfortunately, my fave got the boot this week:

Haven't got into World's Worst Handyman, yet, but I truly love World's Worst Driver. I'd really like to get to know Shelby. I think it's be a really fun person to be around.

I didn't start watching until the 3rd season (I thought it would be a stupid show), but I've seen all 3 seasons now in reruns. Can't wait for Season 4!

 

[josher]

I suggest you watch a few more episodes rather then judging the show on just one.

I've seen them help some very worthy families.

As to the utility costs: if they used superior insulation and energy saving appliances, the energy costs might not have increased at all or perhaps not by much.

Houses in many American communities are only reassessed for tax purposes at rare intervals. They might not have their house reasessed for quite some time.

 

[Jory]

I suggest you watch a few more episodes rather then judging the show on just one.

I've seen them help some very worthy families.

As to the utility costs: if they used superior insulation and energy saving appliances, the energy costs might not have increased at all or perhaps not by much.

Houses in many American communities are only reassessed for tax purposes at rare intervals. They might not have their house reasessed for quite some time.

That on a state level but what about Federal level? The house,trip and any other prize they receive on the show for that year I believe is seen as taxable income by the I.R.S.




Case in point the HGTV Dream house give any and tax nightmare the idea is still the same brand new home build by the show.

Could You Afford to Pay the Taxes on the HGTV Dream Home?

The 2008 HGTV Dream Home is a beautiful mansion right on the water in the Florida Keys, a serene location where nearly anyone would want to win. The dream of winning one of these amazing houses has spurred millions of entries into the Dream Home sweepstakes each year, and the number of entrants is only expected to rise again this year. However, the dream also has a drawback that turns it into a nightmare for some winners – the heavy tax hit on winning such a huge prize. The Trouble with Big Sweepstakes Wins - Paying the Taxes

In the United States, sweepstakes wins are taxed just like any other kind of income. Whether you make $30,000 working at your day job or you win a $30,000 vacation doesn't matter to the IRS – it's all income. This is fine if you happen to win cash sweepstakes and can simply deduct the taxes from your winnings, but with vacations and other prizes that are difficult to liquidate, you have to find the money to pay the taxes elsewhere. The HGTV Dream Home Sweepstakes has an additional tax problem: not only are you hit with a heavy tax burden because the IRS treats you as if you had made an extra few million dollars of salary this year, but if you choose to keep the house, you will also be paying sizable property taxes every year. And some winners have found that just paying the utilities for such a huge house can cost thousands every month.
How Can You Pay Taxes on the HGTV Dream Home?

One idea about handling the sweepstakes taxes on the HGTV Dream Home Giveaway is to use the beautiful home to generate the money to pay for itself. This was Don and Shelly Cruz' plan when they won the 2005 Dream Home in Tyler, Texas. The Tyler Dream Home came with several buildings, including an entire second house out on Lake Tyler. The Cruz family intended to sell the lake cottage or to turn the house into a Bed and Breakfast. Zoning regulations meant that neither idea panned out, however, and the Cruzes ended up having to put the Dream Home on the market. This is why nearly every Dream Home winner has done the same thing with their windfall: they sold it.
Is the Dream Home Sweepstakes Worth Entering If You Have to Sell the House?

On the surface, it seems disappointing to win an amazing home and then have to sell it again. However, winning is an incredible, once-in-a-lifetime experience. HGTV goes to great lengths to surprise the lucky winners, they treat them like royalty when they are flown out to see the home, they can vacation in the house and enjoy all of its amenities, and they can often take the designer furnishings and extras like the car that is also awarded in the Dream Home Sweepstakes for their own. Milton O'Bryant, in his Winner's Tale about winning the 2002 Dream Home said, "It is almost magical the first time you get to tour the house. When we arrived in Annapolis we were greeted by a wonderful staff that took care of all of our needs. You will eat the finest foods, visit the area's best attractions, and receive numerous gifts and keepsakes."
Furthermore, the HGTV Dream Home is a prestigious property that many people would love to own, meaning that it usually sells for millions of dollars. Even after paying off the taxes, smart winners have enough cash left over to live their dream, including renovating their own homes or buying new ones.
In their article Is It Really a Dream Come True?, MSNBC quotes HGTV spokeswoman Emily Yarborough as saying: "Our vision of the dream is that it enables you to do what you want to do."
Enter the Dream Home Sweepstakes – But Don't Fixate on the House

If you won a sweepstake where the prize was a million dollars cash, a vacation, appearances on television shows like Oprah, and a brand new car, you'd consider yourself very lucky indeed. However, some people call the HGTV Dream Home Sweepstakes a nightmare because of the tax burden. The important thing about this sweepstake is not to get fixated on keeping the home, but rather to enjoy the experience and the money and other great prizes that you will receive. As Milton O'Bryant said: "I would have loved to keep it, but I was also terribly proud to sell it. It is a strange emotion... I am proud of this sweepstakes, and I want everyone to enter. It is a chance of a lifetime that everyone should risk. What happens after you win will be what you decide is best."
What to Do if You Win the HGTV Dream Home Sweepstakes

The very first thing that you should do if you win the Dream Home Sweepstakes, or any large sweepstakes prize, is to hire an experienced accountant to help create a plan that will allow you handle the taxes.

 

[gsdx]

I suggest you watch a few more episodes rather then judging the show on just one.

I've seen them help some very worthy families.

I'm not saying they don't help some very worthy families. I'm sure all those people could use some help. But I'm also sure they tell great sob stories to tug at the heartstrings and make the viewers go all wishy-washy over them thinking their lives are at the lowest of lows.

Another episode was on last night from New Jersey - a single father raising 5 boys. Four boys slept on the floor and the eldest slept on a ratty old sofa. There was hardly anything in their fridge except a box of instant mashed potatoes. The father had had 2 heart attacks and couldn't work much and supported his sons through the local food bank. But all 5 boys were over 14 with the eldest being 19. Why couldn't they get part-time jobs?

There's a lot more to it than being worthy. Worthy is a child in a wheelchair in a home which isn't wheelchair accessible and the parents can't afford to make it so. Don't build him a new house. Fix the one he's in so he can live there. Don't drive him away in a limo big enough that he could live in to take him on a vacation in some exotic locale so the old house can be destroyed to build a huge mansion just so Ty can yell, "Bus driver! Move that bus!" so everyone can go nutso over a house they can ill afford to live in.

The term 'Make-Over' means making over the old house. Not making it go away and building an entirely new house so huge that the people can't afford to live there.

If you happen to get the programme Holmes on Homes, I suggest you watch that and see what real people who are genuinely worthy getting only what they were hoping for or needing in the first place before their contractors ripped them off.

 

[josher]

That on a state level but what about Federal level? The house,trip and any other prize they receive on the show for that year I believe is seen as taxable income by the I.R.S.




Case in point the HGTV Dream house give any and tax nightmare the idea is still the same brand new home build by the show.

Could You Afford to Pay the Taxes on the HGTV Dream Home?

The 2008 HGTV Dream Home is a beautiful mansion right on the water in the Florida Keys, a serene location where nearly anyone would want to win. The dream of winning one of these amazing houses has spurred millions of entries into the Dream Home sweepstakes each year, and the number of entrants is only expected to rise again this year. However, the dream also has a drawback that turns it into a nightmare for some winners – the heavy tax hit on winning such a huge prize. The Trouble with Big Sweepstakes Wins - Paying the Taxes

In the United States, sweepstakes wins are taxed just like any other kind of income. Whether you make $30,000 working at your day job or you win a $30,000 vacation doesn't matter to the IRS – it's all income. This is fine if you happen to win cash sweepstakes and can simply deduct the taxes from your winnings, but with vacations and other prizes that are difficult to liquidate, you have to find the money to pay the taxes elsewhere. The HGTV Dream Home Sweepstakes has an additional tax problem: not only are you hit with a heavy tax burden because the IRS treats you as if you had made an extra few million dollars of salary this year, but if you choose to keep the house, you will also be paying sizable property taxes every year. And some winners have found that just paying the utilities for such a huge house can cost thousands every month.
How Can You Pay Taxes on the HGTV Dream Home?

One idea about handling the sweepstakes taxes on the HGTV Dream Home Giveaway is to use the beautiful home to generate the money to pay for itself. This was Don and Shelly Cruz' plan when they won the 2005 Dream Home in Tyler, Texas. The Tyler Dream Home came with several buildings, including an entire second house out on Lake Tyler. The Cruz family intended to sell the lake cottage or to turn the house into a Bed and Breakfast. Zoning regulations meant that neither idea panned out, however, and the Cruzes ended up having to put the Dream Home on the market. This is why nearly every Dream Home winner has done the same thing with their windfall: they sold it.
Is the Dream Home Sweepstakes Worth Entering If You Have to Sell the House?

On the surface, it seems disappointing to win an amazing home and then have to sell it again. However, winning is an incredible, once-in-a-lifetime experience. HGTV goes to great lengths to surprise the lucky winners, they treat them like royalty when they are flown out to see the home, they can vacation in the house and enjoy all of its amenities, and they can often take the designer furnishings and extras like the car that is also awarded in the Dream Home Sweepstakes for their own. Milton O'Bryant, in his Winner's Tale about winning the 2002 Dream Home said, "It is almost magical the first time you get to tour the house. When we arrived in Annapolis we were greeted by a wonderful staff that took care of all of our needs. You will eat the finest foods, visit the area's best attractions, and receive numerous gifts and keepsakes."
Furthermore, the HGTV Dream Home is a prestigious property that many people would love to own, meaning that it usually sells for millions of dollars. Even after paying off the taxes, smart winners have enough cash left over to live their dream, including renovating their own homes or buying new ones.
In their article Is It Really a Dream Come True?, MSNBC quotes HGTV spokeswoman Emily Yarborough as saying: "Our vision of the dream is that it enables you to do what you want to do."
Enter the Dream Home Sweepstakes – But Don't Fixate on the House

If you won a sweepstake where the prize was a million dollars cash, a vacation, appearances on television shows like Oprah, and a brand new car, you'd consider yourself very lucky indeed. However, some people call the HGTV Dream Home Sweepstakes a nightmare because of the tax burden. The important thing about this sweepstake is not to get fixated on keeping the home, but rather to enjoy the experience and the money and other great prizes that you will receive. As Milton O'Bryant said: "I would have loved to keep it, but I was also terribly proud to sell it. It is a strange emotion... I am proud of this sweepstakes, and I want everyone to enter. It is a chance of a lifetime that everyone should risk. What happens after you win will be what you decide is best."
What to Do if You Win the HGTV Dream Home Sweepstakes

The very first thing that you should do if you win the Dream Home Sweepstakes, or any large sweepstakes prize, is to hire an experienced accountant to help create a plan that will allow you handle the taxes.

There's a difference between winning a house in a sweepstakes and being given the gift of a remodeled house.

At some point in the initial or second season of the show, the issue of tax liability for the work, appliances, furnishings etc. on EHMO came up.

I can't remember how it was settled, but I want to say the production company or ABC paid the taxes. I may be very wrong about that though.

The IRS allows you to make charitable gifts to others at which time you also pay the tax on the gift when it's given. The gift recipient gets the whole donation.

 

[josher]

The term 'Make-Over' means making over the old house. Not making it go away and building an entirely new house so huge that the people can't afford to live there.

Well, if the people who've gotten new homes haven't been able to afford to keep them, you can be sure that would have been publicized.

The American media is so cynical that they'd surely dump all over EHMO, if they found out anyone had lost their new home.

What I don't get is why a guy as nice as you seems so angry about someone getting a wonderful gift? You keep saying they can't afford it, but you don't have any evidence of that.

Maybe it's just an American thing. We're all about "bigger is better", often to a fault.

Most American families, I suspect, want to the live in the largest, most beautiful house they can buy.

When I visit "ordinary" people in their homes outside the US, I'm amazed by how small everything seems. It often feels claustrophobic. I've noticed though that new homes in England are getting much larger, and are obviously designed using "American" standards of room size.

 

[DotComGuy]

Handyman
- I was going to mention Joel. He is cute. Michael? is cute too

I really really hated Mike Holmes. On his show, Holmes on homes, he came off like I know everything and no one else does.

I tolerate him now but Ill never like him