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Let's Eliminate Sports Welfare

avalon

avalon

Antwan Scott
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Let's Eliminate Sports Welfare

Short version: summarizes the tax breaks and government payouts given to sports teams. Publicly funded stadiums are the obvious example, but, as you can imagine, there are a ton that are more creative. (Plus a look at how some stadiums are publicly funded.) I think my favorite are the player fines that are tax deductible if the league donates them to charity.

I'm not a tax expert, and I'm sure some of you that are can pick some of this apart, but I thought this was an interesting breakdown. If we are going to cut costs, we should probably look at everything, right?
 
Good article.

The simplest thing for the NFL to do and something that may make financial sense for owners is to lift blackout restrictions for franchises that use publicly funded stadiums. The blackout policy has some merit, but not if local taxpayers aren't buying tickets to a stadium they're already paying for.
 
avalon said:
Let's Eliminate Sports Welfare

Short version: summarizes the tax breaks and government payouts given to sports teams. Publicly funded stadiums are the obvious example, but, as you can imagine, there are a ton that are more creative. (Plus a look at how some stadiums are publicly funded.) I think my favorite are the player fines that are tax deductible if the league donates them to charity.

I'm not a tax expert, and I'm sure some of you that are can pick some of this apart, but I thought this was an interesting breakdown. If we are going to cut costs, we should probably look at everything, right?
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I am about 99.9% sure that player fines would not be deductible as charitable contributions, even if the league donates them to charity. They would, however, likely be deductible as ordinary employee business expenses, subject to the 2% floor for miscellaneous itemized deductions.

I could write a magnum opus on college bowl games and the farce of their tax-exemption as "charitable" organizations. I have represented two bowl games on tax-exemption matters and it actually makes me sick that these organizations are deemed "charitable."
 
This is where the traditional division of conservatism and liberalism does not work. The New York Yankees, who are rumored to have a couple of dollars in the bank, were successful in having politicians use the police power of the state to force taxpayers to help them with their stadium. Then Hank Steinbrenner has the gall to rail against "socialism." There is no shortage of Democrats who have been in on this.

This is why the government needs to be short of much of its power in the economic sphere. What else do you expect from rent-seekers who love "capitalism" but despise the market?
 
Aren't the public funds pretty much decided at the local level? Seems like federal involvement in this is negligible and in the form of bonds.
 
RaleighDevil said:
This is where the traditional division of conservatism and liberalism does not work. The New York Yankees, who are rumored to have a couple of dollars in the bank, were successful in having politicians use the police power of the state to force taxpayers to help them with their stadium. Then Hank Steinbrenner has the gall to rail against "socialism." There is no shortage of Democrats who have been in on this.

This is why the government needs to be short of much of its power in the economic sphere. What else do you expect from rent-seekers who love "capitalism" but despise the market?
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There's no league in the world more socialistic and unfriendly to competition or excellence as the NFL.

No NFL team should ever get a stadium built for them. I think the least valuable team is around $850M.

Cities without baseball or basketball teams could go in with teams to build a stadium/arena.
 
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This goes to my repetitive point that trying to fix our problems through our current tax system is futile. The people with the money are always going to have smarter lawyers and accountants than the bums at the IRS. The only thing that trying to levy "punishment" through the tax code does is catch a lot of unintended people in the wash (i.e. AMT).
 
So how do we fix that? With a flat tax or fair tax that saves the people with money the trouble and just games the system straight up?
 
2&2 Slider To Leyritz said:
This goes to my repetitive point that trying to fix our problems through our current tax system is futile. The people with the money are always going to have smarter lawyers and accountants than the bums at the IRS. The only thing that trying to levy "punishment" through the tax code does is catch a lot of unintended people in the wash (i.e. AMT).
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Hold on. At the risk of looking like a thread stalker, i note you just finished writing a lengthy post in the 250k middle class thread about how reform is futile, we have to work within the current system, and the system should be changed to grant more tax expenditures/subsidies/loopholes to s corp owners. Interested to see how you reconcile that position with this post.
 
Oh, I definitely think it is futile in the grand scheme of things. There is nothing I would like to see more than overhaul. But, like I said on the other thread, it isn't going to happen, and we are stuck with half-ass changes. So that's why during the course of those half-ass changes, we need to pick a side. Is that side going to be the idea of simply maximizing total IRS revenue, or is it going to be those certain groups who we want to see favored? I think most people would choose option c: fairness; but fairness is what I think is futile under the current system.
 
PhDeac said:
So how do we fix that? With a flat tax or fair tax that saves the people with money the trouble and just games the system straight up?
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You could screw rich people in a fair tax structure just as easily as you think poor people will get screwed. Just set a prebate level at $50,000 of consumer expenditures, and you've just shifted the nation's entire tax burden onto the wealthy. But, to answer your question, something like the fair tax (doesn't have to be the fair tax itself) where there are bright-line simple rules that everybody knows and that apply to everybody equally.
 
Cities like Sacramento need to give some incentives for teams. If another company came to town and was going to create tens of millions a year in taxes and jobs, they would get things as well.

Now I don't believe, LA, NY, Philly, Miami or the like should put a penny up for an NFL stadium.
 
2&2 Slider To Leyritz said:
Oh, I definitely think it is futile in the grand scheme of things. There is nothing I would like to see more than overhaul. But, like I said on the other thread, it isn't going to happen, and we are stuck with half-ass changes. So that's why during the course of those half-ass changes, we need to pick a side. Is that side going to be the idea of simply maximizing total IRS revenue, or is it going to be those certain groups who we want to see favored? I think most people would choose option c: fairness; but fairness is what I think is futile under the current system.
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The problem is picking which groups ought to be favored. And when those decisions are made, the truly small business lobby has no seat at the table. At least the non-management wage earner has a seat through union lobbyists and poor are represented by a good chunk of the Democratic party. But nobody gives a crap about the guy who owns the local independent pharmacy or dry cleaner.
 
RJKarl said:
Cities like Sacramento need to give some incentives for teams. If another company came to town and was going to create tens of millions a year in taxes and jobs, they would get things as well.

Now I don't believe, LA, NY, Philly, Miami or the like should put a penny up for an NFL stadium.
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It sounds like the taxes they create go directly to funding the stadiums, along with additional taxes from the community. Given all the money in sports, I'm not sure how stadiums can't be privately financed.
 
They could be privately financed, but getting a sweetheart deal from the state and municipal governments leads right to a higher franchise value
 
TuffaloDeac10 said:
They could be privately financed, but getting a sweetheart deal from the state and municipal governments leads right to a higher franchise value
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Sure, having taxpayers share in a company's expenses will do that. Does it help the community enough to justify the cost?
 
As I said, I absolutely oppose funding for all NFL stadiums and most MLB/NBA/NHL stadiums. There are rare instances that it makes sense.
 
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