NFL relinquishes tax-exempt status

[Landslide Lyndon]

http://bigstory.ap.org/article/f99475845ff746a5bc72c4471e3b6b28/nfl-relinquishing-tax-exempt-status

The National Football League is giving up its tax-exempt status, which Commissioner Roger Goodell called a "distraction."

In a letter to team owners, Goodell said that the league office and its management council will file tax returns as taxable entities for the 2015 fiscal year. Goodell said the NFL has been tax-exempt since 1942, though all 32 teams pay taxes on their income.

Goodell said the change will not alter the function or operation of the league, since all the teams already pay taxes.

"As you know, the effects of the tax-exempt status of the league office have been mischaracterized repeatedly in recent years," Goodell said in the letter, dated Tuesday. "The fact is that the business of the NFL has never been tax exempt."

Major League Baseball gave up its 501(c)(6) tax-exempt status in 2007, which eliminates the requirement for an annual filing of IRS Form 990, which is the publicly available tax return of a tax-exempt organization and requires the listing of compensation for the highest-paid employees.

The National Hockey League also has tax-exempt status, but the National Basketball Association does not.

Some members of Congress have criticized the NFL, which generates billions in revenue, for being tax-exempt.

[memphis]

Good to see at least one religious organization paying taxes.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

I'm not sure I understand why the NFL was tax-exempt to begin with, so this is probably a good thing, although I don't really know much about sports policy in general so I could be wrong.

Nice to see Memphis the Mendacious get the satisfaction of managing to make this about his pet Kulturampf.

I'm glad everyone's happy here. (EDIT: Except for AggregateDemand, but when is AggregateDemand ever happy?)

[AggregateDemand]

Another fine example of political brinksmanship and the gullibility of the general public. The hypocrisy is laughable, too, since many politicians live off of the 501(c)(3) gravy train.

My S-Corp is exempt from taxes. Better start a riot until I pay my taxes. Laff?

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Good to see at least one religious organization paying taxes.

You joke but there are quite a few who are more likely to spend their Sundays with the NFL than in a church on their supposed religion's day of worship.

[Zioneer]

Good to see at least one religious organization paying taxes.

You joke but there are quite a few who are more likely to spend their Sundays with the NFL than in a church on their supposed religion's day of worship.

And half the people in a church are still keeping up with the NFL with their phones and whatnot.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Good to see at least one religious organization paying taxes.

You joke but there are quite a few who are more likely to spend their Sundays with the NFL than in a church on their supposed religion's day of worship.

And half the people in a church are still keeping up with the NFL with their phones and whatnot.

That's why church ends at noon around here in most churches.

[© tweed]

I'm not sure I understand why the NFL was tax-exempt to begin with

it was only the league administrative offices that were tax-exempt, non-profit.  American law holds sports governance and administration (particularly Commissionership) in a unique light.  the revenues generated by the 32 teams are subject to corporate tax, there is sales tax at point of exchange, and league office personnel still had to pay their normal income, payroll, etc. taxes.

this is likely a PR move.  I doubt it will cost them any money (it'll be easy to show no profit/a loss on the administrative office of the NFL).  the non-profit status was widely criticized by people (though their instincts were right, I suspect they had no idea what they were criticizing), so this just removes a target for the NFL to have to defend, coming off their roughest PR year in a long time (domestic violence, concussions, Deflategate).

ultimately I think the concussion/CTE issue will ruin the NFL, and not sometime around the Eschaton, but within a few decades -- but that's another story.