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OT: The NFL pays no taxes


wraub

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Hot on the heels of the wildly popular Super Bowl thread, here's this:

 

The NFL is legally classed as a "non-profit" organization, and, as such, is tax-exempt. Comments?

 

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/brian-...b_1321635.html

 

First article I grabbed, many others are just a search away...

 

I'm a lot more like I am now than I was when I got here.

 

 

 

 

 

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I knew about this. If they are "non-profit", then any money they make past operating expenses must be given away. You can't end up with positive balance in your account. At least that's the way it works for the non-profit I work for. I suppose they could get around that by giving themselves huge raises every year.

 

 

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This is old news, at least to me. The Philadelphia Inquirer reported on the NFL's non-profit status more than 10 years ago (I was involved professionally in the article, as I worked for a non-profit hospital system and the paper wrote about us as well).

 

There are many different classes of tax-exempt organizations, per IRS regulation. They are not all "501-c3," which is the designation for charitable groups like the SPCA or the local soup kitchen. I guess the NFL considers itself a trade association, which is just another type of tax-exempt group. It has nothing to do with how much money a tax-exempt group makes, or how they pay their executives. No one with a brain is making charitable donations to the NFL.

 

The NFL has plenty of money and they stick it to everyone as far as I can tell--the fans, the players, and the government. Is it fair? Probably not, depending on your definition of fair. Is Congress going to challenge the NFL? hahahahahahah.

 

 

"Everyone wants to change the world, but no one thinks of changing themselves." Leo Tolstoy
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I knew about this. If they are "non-profit", then any money they make past operating expenses must be given away. You can't end up with positive balance in your account. At least that's the way it works for the non-profit I work for.

 

 

Maybe their organizational bylaws require they give away profit. Symphony, Opera and Ballet companies (501c3s) don't have to give away their profits and either do unions which are 501c5's.

 

Wally

I have basses to play, places to be and good music to make!
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I don't know about the league itself, but owning a major league sports team is usually a losing proposition.

 

Very few teams make money -- for the owners it's more of a prestige thing.

"Tours widely in the southwestern tip of Kentucky"
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I don't know about the league itself, but owning a major league sports team is usually a losing proposition.

 

Very few teams make money -- for the owners it's more of a prestige thing.

 

Well, yes-or so they say. But no. There's a reason they don't open their books. 'cept hockey. They lose lots of money. Or so I'm told.....That and the Expos. But that's why they're 'Nat's now. Probably because that stadium in Montreal was a giant cement pit. FWIW, I got my picture taken with Youppi! The exclamation point was his idea.

Things are just the way they are, and they're only going to get worse.

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The prices of sports teams are going up so quickly that all you have to do is buy one, hang on for a few years, and then sell for a large profit.

 

 

Yep. The Wilf's bought theVikings for like $600 million. I think the team (especially with a new stadium and even a terrible record) is worth close to a billion now. Not a bad profit.

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Old news. Very old. Once a year or so, this comes up, the "Coalition for the Perennially and Self-Righteous Indignant" will put a few op-eds, two or three members of congress will get up on the Hill and bang some pot lids together, then everyone will forget about it until next year.

 

Kinda like the three year cycle where congress makes a big fuss of investigating "Big Oil" for price gouging every time gas jumps a buck forty a gallon, and nothing ever comes of it.

 

... and, just for the record, corporations don't pay taxes. They never have. WE pay those taxes in the form of price increases to cover "operating expenses".

 

What I DO have a problem with is having to suck up a 1.4% tax increase (yes, I'm talking to YOU, Cincinnati) so they can afford to pay extortion to the owners in the form of a new "cathedral to professional sports" so the owners can keep the concession and parking profits.

 

The real crime here is what is being done by and to colleges and college athletes.

 

Too early to be this cynical. I'm off to go visit "Big Coffee".

 

Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn

 

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I'm a Met fan. I grew up in northern Queens and they're my team. When I was a kid we could take the Q-14 bus into Flushing for a nickel with our bus pass, walk over the creek to Shea Stadium and pay $1.50 for general admission. Major league baseball for under two bucks. We went whenever we could scratch a few dollars together.

 

Now if I get free tickets to CitiField and take my kids it still costs me two hundred bucks with parking and the inevitable concessions... I hate that my kids can't "grow up in a ball park" like I did.

Push the button Frank.
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Take your kids to minor league games or college games.

They are more fun and the price is right.

 

This.

 

When we lived in Raleigh, we regularly went to see the Durham Bulls play. Reasonably priced seats, close enough to share your personal opinions with the umpire, not outrageously priced food (and decent variety) and pretty good baseball.

"Tours widely in the southwestern tip of Kentucky"
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Yeah, I do. Fortunately I live within 20 minutes of the Somerset Patriots, an independent team in the Atlantic League and the Trenton Thunder (Yankees AA).

 

We particularly like the Thunder. Lots of fun for the kids, my girls once did Dizzy Bats between innings. My softball player even got to stand on the field for the national anthem once.

 

One of my favorite memories: A beautiful spring Saturday and a bunch of us went down to Trenton for a Thunder-Binghamton Mets game. I'm sitting by third, a nice breeze coming off the river and I look to my left and there's my dad, I look to my right and there's my son and I think to myself, "This does not at all suck."

 

Yeah minor league and college baseball is awesome but I was lucky enough to grow up with that kind of access to a major league (well, the Mets) stadium and team. That just doesn't exist anymore.

 

Fortunately the games are televised.

Push the button Frank.
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