Expensive loss for sports team owners who are embedded in Trump Tax Bill

(Bloomberg) – The owner's box could soon be less opulent.

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A lucrative tax compensation that sports team owners can use to protect billions of dollars would be shadowed as part of the laws of the Republicans of the Republicans in the areas of Donald Trump's signature control.

The tax compensation was given under fire after an investigation from 2021 Prublica Based on leaked returns showed that the shelter helped owners of the billionaires team with the payment of lower effective tax rates than their players or even concession components. The owner of Los Angeles Clippers, Steve Ballmer, a former CEO of Microsoft Corp., used paper losses from his participation in the team to save about 140 million US dollars for his taxes for over five years, Prublica stated.

The draft law itself is the subject of heated negotiations that enter into the weekend after the Household Committee of the House of Representatives failed to do the costs for the costs of the costs for the costs for the strong conservatives on Friday.

The blessing for franchise owners originated in comprehensive tax legislation in 2004 under President George W. Bush, a former part of the Texas Ranger Major League Baseball team.

Trump has a tortured story with sports team ownership, which includes failed attempts to acquire the Buffalo Bills and the Baltimore Colts soccer teams at the time. He owned a team in the U.Shl, which was no longer existing and played a key role in the fight of the league with the National Football League.

His administration was in sight during the sports team break and initially urged to complete her, said Mark Weinstein, a tax -oriented partner at Hogan Lovells. The Republicans on the paths and means of the house took a medium -sized course on Wednesday and approved a tax bill, which would instead reduce the value of the break by 50%.

The reduction would only apply to owners who acquire the teams after the law came into force, although the change could affect the resale values of the teams.

A fan of restriction of the break is Steve Ellis, President of taxpayers for common sense.

“The commanders sold $ 6 billion,” he said, moving the sale of the NFL commanders from 2023 to a group, which is led by Josh Harris, co-founder of Apollo Global Management, to which the Philadelphia 76ers basketball team belongs. “You don't need help.”

Some athletes and lobbyists welcomed the GOP determination with a back operation with a “sigh of relief” given the efforts of the White House to completely eliminate them, said Weinstein. The owners also evade other risks, such as B. Tax -friendly bonds for the financing of stadium expansion, he said.

A lawyer who dealt with sports problems before the congress -said on the condition of anonymity -said that customers were approaching the change this week, and expected a violent lobby campaign to remove the provision if the Senate takes into account the tax law.

Tax protection enables the owners who operate sports franchise companies to reduce their taxable income depreciation that not only reduce the physical aging of “intangible assets”. This includes so-called “goodwill” aspects such as the call of a team, a strong brand awareness such as a logo and other mental rights, radio and television rights as well as fan loyalty and consequences that also contribute to the value of a team.

The reasons are that a well -known sports team with a loyal fan base is much more worth than the value of its physical net assets such as buildings and equipment. In fact, these other intangible aspects often represent the majority of a team's purchase value.

“Essentially whatever they pay for the Dallas Cowboys-I only do the team-the trade name would be a significant part of it, since it is a high-quality asset,” said Lynn Mucenski-Check, head of federal tax policy at with.

As a result, the owners may be assigned to the costs that are assigned to these objects over a period of 15 years-even if most of these assets do not devalue like physical buildings and other ownership to reduce up to billions of dollars from their taxable income.

The ability to do this to tuning if the franchise was profitable-one of the main tax protection areas to have sports teams for wealthy people or billionaires. Like private equity companies, they are increasingly in Sports franchise owners who are looking for investment options and returns.

Weinstein, whose company was hired this week to support the sale of the Portland Trail Blazers National Basketball Association team, expects the potential change to the Tax Act only have limited reviews for the professional sports team.

“It could be an incentive to buy,” offered Helen “Nellie” Drew, a professor of the University of Buffalo Law School, who was in a legal team, which was handled with the National Hockey League transactions with several teams, including the San Jose Sharks, and Tampa Bay Lightning.

“But there will always be something that is an exclusive country club of 32 NFL owners, for example -even if certain tax breaks are no longer there,” said Drew. “There will always be people who want to buy.”

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