[meteorite-list] meteorites and TAXES

[Paul Gessler]

All this talk about taxes and the like has raised some old questions for me.
If this has been discussed before forgive me I missed it.

Lets say a meteorite falls and you find it then someone sells one from the 
same fall creating a benchmark of value (however fleeting)
Do you immediately incur a tax liability on the stone you have?

I remember back in the day when Sammy Sosa and Mark Mcguire were in a 
homerun race and the topic came up that whoever caught the
record beating baseball would immediately be forced to sell it to raise the 
taxes owed on it or pay out some ludicrous amount to the feds in order to 
keep it.

So what gives?

I recently read the article about the Novato 100 gram stone being worth 
$10,000
GREAT! But does the owner now owe a percentage to the tax man????

What are the facts concerning this kind of windfall?

Any idea?

-Paul Gessler