Now that the Super Bowl is over and you are either in euphoric heaven or the depths of despair depending upon your gridiron loyalties, let me proceed to burst your little bubble: the NFL is ripping you off.
Due to an old tax code created when the NFL and the AFL joined in 1966 they get to enjoy tax exempt status.
The NFL makes $9.5 billion a year.
Yes, $9.5 billion. How much do you make? How much of that is taxes?
The Commissioner of the NFL, Roger Goodell, makes nearly $30 million a year. That is more than most non-profits themselves make in a year.
This same organization that portrays itself as being the most American of sports institutions, the most patriotic does not pay a dime to help run the country. And it claims that it shouldn’t have to. They are about as two faced as a tele-evangelist running for office.
The NFL claims that it is actually losing money this year and shouldn’t be paying any taxes. This is a lot like those people who park their SUV’s in the handicapped parking lot while they go skiing. As real as a 4 ½ dollar bill. In truth it is one of the most profitable enterprises in the world.
A couple Senators have already commented on this, Angus King of Maine and Tom Coburn of Oklahoma saying it would be fair to taxpayers if they chipped in their two billion bits too.
It will take more than a couple Senators to change this though. It will take US, the ordinary people of the United States of America. If you wish to see this ended and the NFL paying their fair share of the tax burden we all carry go to any (or all) of these websites and sign your name:
• www.change.org/NFLnonprofit
• www.dailykos.com/campaigns/510
• www.credomobilize.com/petitions/end-the-nfl-s-charity-tax-break
So, now that the Super Bowl Party is over, why not help end the NFL’s little 34 year party? Or else declare themselves not to be Americans.
When is the last time we audited those books?
Most people confuse non profits, a tax classification, with charities. Real charities like soup kitchens, curing disease or feeding starving kids in Africa are 501 C3s. There are other categories of such as C6 which the NFL falls under along with business leagues, guilds, unions, etc. Your local Chamber of Commerce is probably a C6. A sewing or book club might be a C6.
The main test is whether the purpose of the organization is to generate revenue and direct profits to investors, owners and shareholders. The purpose of the NFL is to act as the representative of team owners, act as the administrative body, make rules and negotiate contracts on behalf of the members, the teams. Yes, the NFL collects revenue on behalf of the teams but the revenuemismthen distributed to the members. As far as I know the NFL is not accumulating assets in excess of normal operating needs.
The NFL meets all the IRS criteria for a C6 non profit. That doesn’t mean they are a charity.
@deeptrout – I agree that a case can be made, but that’s far from saying it’s a foregone conclusion, which is how it currently is. A case at least as strong can be made that it’s a for-profit enterprise.
@deeptrout Good point.
Each team is a separate for profit corporate entity. The NFL corporation negotiates the collective contracts, like television, and forwards the proceeds to each team. I find it curious that the NFL is a qualified non profit, but if it isn’t accumulating and storing assets based on it’s NP status, I can see how a case could be made for a NP status.
After watching that spectacle last night they pay every American minimum wage for four hours wasted time. Forty hours plus overtime if you count the week long hype