“Please excuse any typos, wrote this on my phone in a hurry”
It’s less about sports owners vs person on the street than it is about any business owner and their employees. The business owner most likely does pay an overall lower tax rate. It is a broader philosophical conundrum.
On the one hand, you want to encourage entrepreneurship. Without a disproportionate reward, why would anyone be willing to take on the regulatory burden of a owning a business. On the other hand, we wish to promote equal treatment. Same laws for everyone.
So maybe, the real conversation should be about simplification of tax law to promote a less disproportionate divide between being an employer and an employee. The compliance frameworks and tax laws are as it is horrendously complicated in every country I’ve ever worked in. How about simplifying them? Have income > X? Pay Y tax. Not only will this promote egalitarianism, it will ease the complexity of running a business.
A good compromise then? In theory. In practice, that’s never going to happen. Governments are not autocratic. They need consensus to move forward. Making a change like this will involve appealing to all kinds of govt. leaders with differing vested interests. It’s the very reason behind our (US/Canada) countless tax rebates clauses and provisions. Local leaders creating new subsidy programs to attract more businesses (that translates into jobs) for their constituents.
Hmm..what can we do then? Treat sports franchises differently from other businesses. Somewhere in the countless points the author makes, they brought this up. I think there’s some real substance here.