Do Olympians pay tax on medals?

Only on Gold. Olympic gold medals are made up of about 4,000 dollars worth of gold, depending on the year. Seeing that gold is a form of currency (in the united states at least), they would be expected to pay the Gold Standard Tax, enacted in 1980 in order to keep gold as a viable currency in the United States. Luckily, the United States government pays its own athletes a larger sum, so there is never really a problem.