This could go in either thread, since it’s a Democrat and a Republican, but this threads seems so lonely.
NFL Told to Rename Redskins or Risk Losing Tax Exempt Status
I’m sure there’s a list somewhere of what an organization has to do to qualify for tax-exempt status. The NFL either qualifies, or it doesn’t. It shouldn’t be held out as a bargaining chip.
The defiinition in 501(c)(6) appears to include a specific exemption for professional football leagues. Thanks, Congress.
How did the NFL get tax exempt status and what does that mean, exactly?
I couldn’t answer either of those with enough detail to be useful, but I don’t see any good reason for “professional football leagues” to be singled out for exemption. And whether that exemption continues should be based on stronger economic and policy goals than the name of one of the franchises.
The official reasoning for the NFL being tax exempt is because each team is a unique entity. The NFL itself is non-profit, it’s the teams that make money. The league is a trade association, apparently.
Not saying I agree with any of that.
Ok.
Do the teams themselves pay taxes?
It’s not the NFL that’s being told to change its name or start paying taxes, it’s the Redskins. If the teams aren’t exempt, then threatening to take away their tax-exempt status isn’t much of a threat. And if they are exempt, WHO WAS SMOKING WHAT THAT DAY??
Bad enough that grown men play childish games while the rest of the world pays to applaud – who decided they shouldn’t contribute to American society?? :smack:
(Yeah, I’m gonna get flack for that…)
I could buy that the main functions of the NFL are the non-revenue-generating tasks of organizing, administering and mediating the interactions of the teams (who individually pay corporate taxes) but the NFL itself must generate income from licensing various NFL-logo products and if they’re not paying taxes on this income, well… that’s a whole what-the-fuck right there.
Yes.
Tom Cole is a pro-life, pro-business, pro-gun Republican, so I’m not sure this qualifies as a “liberal” idea.
Teams pay taxes on all shared revenues. The only real benefit of the league’s tax exemption (versus not creating a jointly owned corporation to run things) is that the teams get to pay for “joint” things - the commissioner’s salary, league marketing, referee salaries, and so on - with pretax dollars.
So it’s an accounting thing that would net no difference if it was pulled? Our accountant has us write off all those expenses (employee salaries, marketing, etc.) as it is.
Or is the stick the threat that if they pull the exemption, the NFL itself won’t be able to carry on collecting revenue without paying taxes on it, and the creation of the joint corporation or other entity to serve the same functions will be a huge disruption time, agreement, etc.-wise?
This is the hyper-sensitivity liberal bullshit that makes me want to punch a minority and ban gay marriage.
Is there any justification for this “they are saying that my sexuality is all that matters about me” non-sequitur, beyond it likely being her in her job description to find offense?
If it had female comedians delivering the same info but with jokes, would it be saying that a sense of humor is all that matters about women?
The NFL is the jointly held corporation. I’m saying that if they pulled the NFL’s tax exemption the teams would have to administer league matters directly, and I’m not sure that would be possible. Or they could pay the additional taxes, of course. It wouldn’t net “no difference”, but I don’t think it would make a significant difference. Maybe a few million a year?
Meh. She would probably be okay with it if there were also scantily clad men in the video, but there aren’t. Maybe the message is that Air New Zealand doesn’t care if its female passengers put on their seat belts.
One the one hand, Revtim, i understand your point.
On the other, though, i get annoyed at the constant use of attractive, scantily-clad women to try to get me to buy things or pay attention to some message or other.
I say this not as a prude. I’m a straight guy, and there are times when i’m happy to look at attractive women. I’ve watched my share of porn over the years.
But i really get sick of the lack of imagination shown by marketers and advertisers. “Well, our product isn’t that great, and i don’t have any new and smart ideas about how to promote it. I know! Let’s add hot babes in bikinis! Genius!”
These people can fuck right off.
Not only is their obsession with almost-naked women stupid, it does demean women by suggesting that they’re primarily useful as visual objects, and it also insults my intelligence by assuming that i’ll fall over myself to pay attention to anything some hot babe tells me.
Dr. Russell teaches “taxation, political theory and ethics” at Massey, according to her professional profile. I don’t know her work as a feminist commentator but I hope this isn’t a case of offense for the sake of raising one’s profile. But then I haven’t seen the video either.
I did like ANZ’s Bear Grylls safety video though. And I suppose Mr. Grylls could be considered eye candy for at least some of the ladies, although he wasn’t scantily clad.
If she had made that particular complaint, she might have had a point. But her complaint was completely different, and as far as I can tell, completely unsupported beyond a knee-jerk attempt to find offense.
Ray Nagin convicted of corruption
The man *was *the face of the Bush administration’s post-Katrina failures. The man is a disgrace.
Given the magnitude of despicableness, this should be a bigger story. It’s mildly prominent on CSM, a small also-ran on the NYT and the Washington Post. It’s also a tiny-run on Fox News’ site.
Convicted on 20 federal charges. You have to work to get that kind or reputation.
I’m going to give her the benefit of the doubt and assume that she was complaining about sexism in the video because she thought the video was sexist. Based solely on what has been written in this thread, I’m also going to work on the assumption that she was right.
Isn’t it terrible that honest, hard-working corporations can get a reputation for sexism just for producing a safety video starring a bunch of hot babes frolicking on a beach, when careful analysis of the video and studied debate under rigorous masculine norms of procedure would surely show that no such sexism was intended?
It’ll probably grow a bit once he’s sentenced. But really, mayors just aren’t that interesting. Between Bud Dwyer and Marion Barry and Kwame Kilpatrick you have to do something really special to make the news now - like Rob Ford.
You do whatever you want, but my complaint is only about what she actually said, not what others assumed she meant.