GOP Tax Proposal Would End Tax Break That Includes NFL Stadiums
The House GOP’s more than 400 pages of proposed changes to the tax code include a shift that would impact the NFL, which President Donald Trump has attacked throughout 2017 for its players’ protests during the national anthem.
Inside Subtitle G—Bond Reforms is a passage stating, “No Tax Exempt Bonds for Professional Stadiums.” As Business Insider explains, “[L]ocal governments issue bonds to pay for the construction of sports facilities,” but the end of tax exempt bonds “would prevent people from deducting interest income [from] those bonds on their federal taxes.”
Though this section item would impact all professional stadiums (hockey, baseball, basketball and football), the controversy surrounding taxes, Trump and the NFL has brought football into the national focus.
NFL players have been kneeling (“taking a knee”), during the performance of the national anthem at games. This gesture was popularized in 2016 with Colin Kaepernick when he did not stand during the anthem as a form of protest against black oppression in the U.S.
This form of protest has grown and spread to college and high school sports as well, as athletics and activism converge against police brutality and racism in the United States.
Trump tweeted extensively about the NFL protests:
The issue of kneeling has nothing to do with race. It is about respect for our Country, Flag and National Anthem. NFL must respect this!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 25, 2017
At the end of September, Trump evencalled for players who did not stand to be fired. After his comment, during thethird week of the season, almost 200 athletes took a knee.
On Oct. 10, Donald Trump tweeted:
Why is the NFL getting massive tax breaks while at the same time disrespecting our Anthem, Flag and Country? Change tax law!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 10, 2017
It is unclear if Trump was referring to the cost of stadium construction or to the NFL league office, which was tax exempt until 2015.
When the issue of Trump’s tweet was raised to White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, she did not clarify what Trump was referencing.
"While the NFL may have given up its tax-exempt status a few years ago, it's been well documented that billions of dollars continue to subsidize the construction and renovation of professional sports stadiums... If this industry is going to use money from American taxpayers to build the very fields they play on, then is it really too much to ask that they show respect for the American flag at the beginning of the game?," Sanders asked.
Trump may have also been referring to the taxes of team owners. However, as Jared Dubin wrote at CBS Sports, Trump’s “tax plan contains several breaks that would be of extraordinary benefit to the owners… so that seems rather unlikely.”
According toresearch and analysis published at Economic Studies at Brookings, between 2000 and 2014 there were 16 new or renovated stadiums built in the NFL, 13 of which were paid for with tax-exempt bonds.
Two days before the tax overhaul plan was released, Rep. Matt Gaetz, a Republican from Florida spoke on Fox & Friends about tax breaks and stadium construction.
"I don't think that the millionaires and billionaires associated with professional sports ought to get a special tax break that's not available to the regular small businesses and regular folks in my district and across America," Gaetz said.
Gaetz’s comments on Fox & Friends also addressed thecontroversy surrounding the NFL protests. "I think that these protests that the NFL has engaged in, that the league office has seemingly embraced has really drawn into sharp relief the treatment that they get," he said.
Trump wants to the proposed bill to be law by Christmas.
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