Nowadays Ebenezer Scrooge--miser turned benefactor after he'd been visited by ghosts of Christmas past, present, and future--wouldn't need a burst of revelation to see the light from above. Instead, he'd have to consult with his extensive staff of CPAs, financial analysts and sundry other advisers before committing to doing good for nothing more than mere goodness' sake. He'd also want to calculate just how good a box seat he'd get for his donations so that his was less a freewill gift than a solid business proposition backed up by state and federal law.
Starting next year, that old spoilsport, the Internal Revenue Service, isn't going to let these big givers deduct 80 percent of the "gifts" they make to enhance college arenas like Razorback Stadium in Fayetteville or Centennial Bank Stadium in Jonesboro. Both these coliseums plan to add still more highly desirable seats that would be paid for, in part, by the taxpayers of the state and nation.
To quote Adam Haukap, executive director of the Red Wolves Foundation that supports athletics at Arkansas State University: "In college athletics, as an industry, we're going to have to decide how to price things, how to model things, what your financial structure is moving forward." In a way, this recognition that college sport isn't a sport at all but just an adjunct of corporate America, comes as a wholesome shock of reality--or should to anybody who hasn't caught on yet that this game is no game at all.
The new federal tax code does include a 20 percent excise tax on tax-exempt organizations if compensation of more than $1 million is paid to any of its five highest-paid employees. At the University of Arkansas campus in Fayetteville, the chief basketball and football coaches make well above the amount that sets the tax rate into motion. Which itself is a comment on how much We the People value higher education as opposed to just plain higher sports.
There is a raw justice to this new tax code, and while those of a suspicious nature will still find inequities in the new setup, at least the grosser aspects of the old system are being addressed.
Editorial on 12/28/2017