Lower Income Taxes for California Athletic Talent

Matt Munson

Inland Utopia | December 5, 2015

Sacramento we do have a problem and it affects people from San Francisco to
San Diego. Our income tax rate of 13.3% is not an incentive for athletes
to play for our teams. No matter if it s the Lakers, the 49 ers and the
Dodgers we are handicapped by the high taxes our state have. Lebron James
would rather play for the Miami Heat than to consider the Lakers, Zack
Greinke recently moved to the Diamondbacks.

San Diego tax activist Richard Rider brought forth this issue a year ago and
I realized that this was going to happen to fans in California sooner or
later where the issue would hit home for Dodger fans.

By providing an incentive for top athletic talent to play for California
teams it helps the value of the franchises and the communities that host
them. I would consider the Top 25% in performers in their leagues
eligible for the tax incentive where the 13.3% tax rate gets cut in half
for the duration of their contract. 6.65% would be the tax rate for these
eligible athletes.

How would we consider the Top 25% in performance? Leaders in wins,
strikeouts, home runs, hits, earned run average would be good metrics if
we were considering a baseball player. You would have to be a leader in 2
of the categories in order to be eligible for the tax incentive. The NBA,
NHL and NFL would also set their categories in consultation with the
Board of Equalization.

If we have modest tax rates we could remove the fiscal considerations for
athletes who decide which city to play in when they are in free agency
and they could just worry about the weather, the stadium and other
non-financial factors in choosing the team of their choice.

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