Oprah gives away a new car to every member of her audience!

Plus don't forget the tax deduction that she recieves.

Also, I think that the people who recieve the car need to pay the title and taxes as well as the insurance. Yes it's great that she is very generous, but most of the people who couldn't afford the car to begin with probably will not be able to afford to keep the car.
 
DocL said:
Plus don't forget the tax deduction that she recieves.

Also, I think that the people who recieve the car need to pay the title and taxes as well as the insurance. Yes it's great that she is very generous, but most of the people who couldn't afford the car to begin with probably will not be able to afford to keep the car.
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I am not so sure about the tax deduction, if I buy a car for someone I can't claim the deduction. Why do you think that she would be able to deduct anything from her taxes? I guess if they can prove that it is a valid expense of the show they might be able to deduct them, but this might be a stretch.

I also wouldn't be suprised to find out that she or her company covered the other expenses knowing that most of the people couldn't afford to handle it themselves.

I would find it hard to believe that she would give the cars to the people knowing that they would have to give them up. Even if they did I am sure they could sell the car and make out quite well since most of them would be in a lower tax bracket.

You sound like one of the glass half empty kind of guys sometimes.
 
There are always motives for doing something as large as this, and it is unfortunate that these people are being used for someone else's benefit. It really seems that Pontiac was able to use a large medium to gain publicity for the release of their new G6 sedan, and who better to be partnered with than Orpah.

Also, how many people in the audience would have gone out and bought one of these new Pontiac G6 that are just being released?

And btw, the glass is half empty because I drank the other half. :D
 
DocL said:
There are always motives for doing something as large as this, and it is unfortunate that these people are being used for someone else's benefit. It really seems that Pontiac was able to use a large medium to gain publicity for the release of their new G6 sedan, and who better to be partnered with than Orpah.

Also, how many people in the audience would have gone out and bought one of these new Pontiac G6 that are just being released?

And btw, the glass is half empty because I drank the other half. :D
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Of course there are motives, I am sure Pontiac provided some very good pricing for the publicity and I am sure it will help the ratings of the Oprah show. So what! It still means 278 people who didn't have good transportation now have cars. When I donate money to charities, I get a tax deduction and it makes me feel good that some of my money is hopefully helping find a cure for cancer or a child is getting something they need. Does it make it bad because I am also getting something out of the donation?

I also don't understand why it would matter if people in the audience would of bought the G6 if they hadn't won the car. If they don't like the car they can always sell it and buy something else.

Make sure you don't drink the rest of the water in the glass, because it is almost gone!
 
Originally posted by DocL:<br><I>There are always motives for doing something as large as this, and it is unfortunate that these people are being used for someone else's benefit. It really seems that Pontiac was able to use a large medium to gain publicity for the release of their new G6 sedan, and who better to be partnered with than Orpah.</I>
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According to this article the vehicles were donated by Pontiac:

http://www.cnn.com/2004/SHOWBIZ/TV/09/13/people.oprahs.surprise.ap/index.html

So no deductions for Oprah :mad: , and it is a nice thing to do for people in need :) . I like the way that it appears to be all about Oprah doing this nice thing but it boils down to big business and marketing, Pontiac and Oprah will get lots of press over this.
 
While I didn't see the entire show, I saw a quick clip on CNN this afternoon. I don't know about motives, tax breaks, publicity, etc. But what I do know is that I saw a lot of suprised guests in the audience (predominantly female, FWIW) that were close to tears.

Publicity or not, the looks they gave appeared very genuine to me.
 
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FuryNSX, I agree everyone was very surprised and happy. From what I read on CNN each of the audience members were choosen carefully from letters written in by friends and family members stating their needs for a new car. So it definately seems to be a very generous donation to families that had a genuine need for a car.

But lets report the story as it really was....Oprah did not give away all these cars, her show facilitated donations by Pontiac to needy families.

I am really happy for the recipients, and my personal feeling is if you are doing better than most, hopefully you do what you can to assist others with a <I>genuine need</I>. The key being a <I>genuine need</I>, congrats to those families, to Oprah, and Pontiac on a generous act of kindness. :)
 

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