Newsom Taxes The Joy Out Of Victory And Rubs Salt In Losing Wounds
When it comes to professional sports, I, for one, find it difficult to muster up any sympathy for professional athletes when it comes to salary issues. That said, even we as fans get caught up in it. When it comes to our favorite athletes, if we want them to stay with the team, we throw around outrageous numbers, just like anyone else.
Without giving it a thought, we’ll advocate for someone we really don’t know, and we’ve never met, to be paid an outrageous sum of money that we ourselves will never come close to earning. We do this just so we can enjoy ourselves on Sunday afternoons, rooting for teams and players that have no bearing on our lives.
I say all of this because what Gavin Newsom and California are doing may not directly affect these players’ lives, but it clearly demonstrates the absurdity of the state’s taxes.
Sam Darnold, the quarterback for the Seattle Seahawks, earned a $178,000 player bonus for winning Super Bowl LX, but due to California’s high “jock tax” on income earned by nonresidents during “duty days,” he owes an estimated $249,000 in state taxes, resulting in a net financial loss for the game itself.
According to Sportico, the outlet reported the sizable check is due to California’s “jock taxes,” which require pro athletes who don’t live in the state to pay percentages of their yearly income based on the number of days they work in California.
The days have been dubbed “duty days,” and after the Seahawks touched down in California on Feb. 1st, Darnold and the rest of his team accumulated eight days total by playing in Santa Clara on Sunday night. His three-year, $105 million contract was impacted by Sacramento’s tax code before he could celebrate with the Lombardi Trophy.
The pain doesn’t stop there. The Seahawks play division games against the 49ers and Rams – multiple trips back to California that they can’t avoid. The Patriots also make a trip back when they play the Chargers on this year’s schedule. Every trip back to this leftist swamp means more “duty days” in California and bigger tax bills when April rolls around.
Drake Maye, the 23-year-old quarterback of the Patriots, is also getting hammered by this ridiculous tax. Maye will have to hand over roughly $186,000 to Sacramento despite losing Sunday night, and most rookies have no clue this is coming until the bill arrives. Like Darnold, California isn’t just taxing his loser’s share of the Super Bowl. The state is digging into his entire $960,000 annual salary based on the eight days he spent in California.
This tax fallacy calculates “duty days” by including travel, practice, and team meetings. It then divides those California duty days by the total number of season days and applies that percentage to a player’s full yearly salary.
California has been running this tax scam since 1991. The complexity is intentional; California has designed this system to extract maximum revenue from athletes who cannot defend themselves because they don’t vote there.
After the 1991 NBA Finals in Los Angeles, California, sent the Chicago Bulls a tax bill for playing basketball in the state, Illinois responded with what they called “Michael Jordan’s Revenge.” Their message was clear: if California is going to tax our players, then we will tax theirs as well.
Currently, 21 states have adopted similar tax practices. However, California stands out as the most aggressive, collecting approximately $239 million annually from its “jock tax.”
California boasts the highest state income tax in the U.S., yet businesses and high earners are moving to Texas, Florida, and Tennessee. This fact perplexes Newsom, who still cannot understand why people keep leaving.
Last month, Newsom announced an $18 billion budget deficit, which is expected to increase to $22 billion next fiscal year and reach $35 billion annually by 2027-28. California is facing a fiscal crisis due to excessive spending while simultaneously increasing taxes on anyone who enters the state.
The jock tax shows exactly how Sacramento operates – squeeze every dollar from people who can’t vote against you.
Congratulations, Seahawks, but know this: next year’s Super Bowl is back in California at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, California, so temper your expectations accordingly.
