Thread: Why the NFL decided to start paying taxes

After over 70 years, the NFL has reportedly given up its nonprofit status and will begin paying taxes, starting with the 2015 fiscal year.

Commissioner Roger Goodell explained the decision to the NFL's owners in a memo tweeted by Bloomberg's Scott Soshnick, calling the league's tax-exempt status a "distraction."

It's a bit confusing why the NFL is tax-exempt in the first place. Normally, we associate the concept of a "nonprofit" with charities, religions, and schools -- organizations that are supposed to value making the world a better place rather than earning cash. Meanwhile, the NFL is a billion-dollar behemoth that has almost perfected the art of money-making and pays its commissioner almost $50 million.

rest - http://www.sbnation.com/2015/4/28/85...goodell-salary

from same article:

Wait, the NFL makes all that money and hasn't been getting taxed?

Not quite. Most of the money the NFL as a whole makes is taxed and always has been. Any revenue an individual team makes -- ticket sales, jersey sales, their split of the league's massive TV deals -- is the revenue of that team. The NFL's teams are not tax-exempt. They have been paying their share of the huge amounts of money they make.

However, the league's main office -- the administrative arm of the league, the people in charge of setting the NFL's rules, organizing its events and such -- is considered tax-exempt. In comparison to the vast sums of money the NFL's teams reel in, the NFL's league office makes a pretty small slice of the pie, mainly through the membership teams each NFL team pays.

http://www.sbnation.com/2015/4/28/85...goodell-salary

very swell of them.