Fans of the 1-and-5 Oakland Raiders, San Francisco 49ers or New York Giants are already suffering plenty this season, but a new report by Bloomberg News’ Lynnley Browning might depress them even further. The 2017 tax law, Browning writes, “could put teams in states with high personal income tax rates at a disadvantage when negotiating with free agents thanks to new limits on deductions, including for state and local taxes.”
That’s based on research by tax economist Matthias Petutschnig of the Vienna University of Economics and Business, who has found that, over a span of 22 years, NFL teams in high-tax states have lost more regular season games, on average, than teams in low or no-tax states. The reason: teams paying more to compensate for higher taxes run into salary cap constraints. “The new tax law exacerbates my findings and makes it harder for high-tax teams to put together a high-quality roster,” Petutschnig told Bloomberg.
