Around Town: It’s time for the NFL to pay taxes
Now that the Super Bowl is behind us, it’s time to take on the tax code.
Let’s begin with my personal football credentials. Our son played four years of high school football. I religiously watch the USC-UCLA game (Go Bruins!), unless it conflicts with Army-Navy (Go Navy, Beat Army!). My favorite pro team is the Green Bay Packers.
That said, it is time for Congress to reform the tax code, starting with the NFL.
The NFL or National Football League is an unincorporated association, designated by the IRS as a nonprofit 501(c)(6) association. The association is formed by 32 separately owned and operated pro football teams.
This month, when you begin preparation of your tax return, remember this: the NFL is a tax-exempt organization and NFL Commissioner Roger Goddell earned $44 million in 2014.
Unlike those tiny tea-party groups, the NFL hasn’t had any problems with Lois Lerner, Congress or the White House.
Football has changed since the great poet A.E. Houseman wrote:
Twice a week the winter thorough
Here stood I to keep the goal:
Football then was fighting sorrow
For the young man’s soul.
The “soul” of the NFL is lost in the hundreds of lawsuits filed by former players who suffered lasting brain damage due to concussions.
I can write those words because I like football.
The only “sorrow” was when Roger Goddell initially gave Baltimore Ravens running back Ray Rice a two-game suspension after Rice beat his then-fiancee (now wife) unconscious in an elevator.
That’s why Goddell is paid more than any pro football player.
As for “goals,” the tax-exempt status didn’t help the NFL when Jonathan Dwyer, an Arizona Cardinals running back, broke his wife’s nose because she wouldn’t have sex with him, then threw a shoe at their 17-month-son.
At $44 million a year, Goddell also gets paid more than the editor of the San Diego Union Tribune, which provides a free online NFL arrests database (see utsandiego.com/nfl/arrests-database).
The database says that last month, Indianapolis Colts linebacker Andrew Jackson was arrested on a drunken driving charge in Bowling Green, Ky., another Colts linebacker, Josh McNary, was charged with rape, criminal confinement with bodily injury and battery resulting in bodily injury “related to an incident with a woman” after a night of drinking at a bar, New York Jets running back Chris Johnson was charged with open carrying of a firearm, after he was pulled over near downtown Orlando for running a stop sign, and Chicago Bears cornerback Tim Jennings was arrested for DUI and reckless driving in Atlanta.
As one comedian recently noted, Deflategate was refreshing — it was the first NFL scandal that actually concerned the game of football.
The players are cloaked in the presumption of innocence. They have the right of trial by jury. The issue is not their guilt or innocence, but whether we, the taxpayers, should continue to subsidize the NFL as a tax exempt nonprofit.
The game of football will survive either way. In fact, it might improve without the tax break.
Hey, Congress! Let’s tax the heck out of the NFL and use the money for concussion research.
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ANITA SUSAN BRENNER is a longtime La Cañada Flintridge resident and an attorney with Law Offices of Torres and Brenner in Pasadena. Email her at anitasusan.brenner@yahoo.com and follow her on Twitter @anitabrenner.