Tom Coburn introduces "Tax the NFL" amendment...he's finally doing something sensible?

[alp227]

Sen. Tom Coburn of Oklahoma has had a career in crazy since first being elected to Congress in 1994 as a Representative for a district encompassing Eastern Oklahoma. But as Think Progress reports, he may actually be doing something sensible for a change:

Oklahoma Sen. Tom Coburn (R) today introduced an amendment to the Marketplace Fairness Act that would end the practice of allowing professional sports leagues to qualify as tax-exempt organizations, a move that would hit leagues like the National Football League, the Professional Golfers Association (PGA) Tour, and the National Hockey League, among others.

Since 1966, the tax code has allowed leagues to classify as 501(c)(6) charitable organizations — a classification used by trade and industry organizations — under the assumption that the leagues were promoting the general value of their sports. But Coburn’s amendment asserts that the leagues are not non-profits engaged in the promotion of their sports but instead are businesses interested solely in the promotion of their business; that is, the NFL isn’t so much concerned about promoting the general sport of football as it is concerned with promoting NFL football, because it is the NFL brand and the NFL teams and logos and products that make it a profitable business. The NFL, for instance, didn’t seem interested in promoting the general spread of football when a competitor league, the United States Football League, was formed in 1983. Likewise, the PGA Tour, NHL, and other sports leagues serve to promote their brand of their sports, not the sport as a whole.

Further, the leagues hardly pay their executives as if they are non-profits. The NFL paid $51.5 million to just eight executives in 2010, according to Coburn, and other leagues are similar — PGA commissioner Tim Finchem made $5.2 million that year, while NHL commissioner Gary Bettman took home $4.3 million.

Think Progress then quotes Coburn's 2012 Waste Book where the senator writes: "Taxpayers may be losing at least $91 million subsidizing these tax loopholes for professional sports leagues that generate billions of dollars annually in profits."

[Beaverhausen]

1. Tax churches too

[mountain grammy]

3. Guns, God and the NFL, tax them all!

[Initech]

8. And close the overseas loopholes.

Our government is going broke at an alarming rate and these assholes still get a free ride? No they'd rather have poor kids work for school lunches.

[zbdent]

2. well, that will kill that small business ...

um, if you don't get it ... that's a huge heaping smelly dose of

[Bjorn Against]

4. I never knew pro sports teams were tax exempt "charitable organizations"

If that is true it is absolutely insane. These teams pull in billions yet we use taxpayer funds to build them stadiums which can not even be used from public events unless we pay the team a rental fee, despite the fact that they are extremely profitable and we give them hundreds of millions of public dollars we still don't make them pay taxes. If people enjoy sports as a hobby fine, but to love it so much that you are willing to allow these teams to rip off the public is pure insanity.

Never thought I would be supporting a law introduced by Coburn, but if there is no poison pill I am not seeing then this looks like a good bill to me.

[BrotherIvan]

5. I didn't know this either

And I am totally appalled. Cities should be taxing them as well. Just gross.

[LiberalAndProud]

6. This seems like a no-brainer to me.

Did anybody here realize that pro sports were tax exempt? I sure didn't. Tom Coburn did good this time.

[X_Digger]

7. One clarification.. non-profit doesn't mean charity.

"Non-profit"/"not-for-profit" just means that there are no shareholders (public or private), nobody to get a dividend from company profits. A better term is "non-stock corporation".

Some non-stock corporations are indeed charities, but not all, or even most. There are about thirty different kinds of non-stock corporations who pay no taxes themselves, and some of them can take tax-deductible donations (a much smaller subset).

Non-stock corporations can make gobs of profit, and pay exorbitant salaries to executives.

eta: I thought there were only ten or so kinds of tax exempt non-stock corporations. I was mistaken, looks like there are about thirty.

[LiberalAndProud]

9. Why pro football leagues?

I get trade associations and even chambers of commerce (ugh), but the NFL? Come on!

Section 501(c)(6) of the Internal Revenue Code provides for the exemption of business leagues, chambers of commerce, real estate boards, boards of trade and professional football leagues, which are not organized for profit and no part of the net earnings of which inures to the benefit of any private shareholder or individual.
http://www.irs.gov/Charities-&-Non-Profits/Other-Non-Profits/Business-Leagues

[X_Digger]

10. Yeah, I don't get it either.

But the TP article author seems to be under the mistaken impression that a non-stock corporation ("non-profit&quot shouldn't make a profit.

That supposition seems to be common, so I thought I'd clarify. I've worked with and for a lot of 501(c) companies, some of which were charities, but a majority of which were not.