In recent years, the question of NHL teams and their tax situation have been debated by experts and NHL leaders.
Like the Florida panthers are two victories far from the defense of their Stanley Cup championship, it was difficult to ignore that they, the Tampa Bay LightningTHE Vegas Golden Knights And even the Colorado Avalanche have won everything in recent years while having Some of the lowest taxes of any NHL team.
In January, San Jose Sharks GM Mike Grier said he had seen both sides of the tax problem, but that He would also hypothetically support a tax equalization plan.
Another supporter of such a plan is TNT analyst and former NHL player, Paul Bissonnette, who has repeatedly said that he wanted the League to approach the problem.
This week, Bissonnette brought back his grunts to the NHL High Commissioner, Gary Bettman, In an NHL interview on TNT in the Stanley Cup final. But Bettman skillfully thwarted, and if we are honest, we must say that he has done a solid job to speak against any type of plan to deal with the tax inequalities from one team to another.
“It’s a ridiculous problem”, ” Bettman said. “When Florida’s teams were not good, which was for about 17 years, no one said anything. For those of you who were playing, were you sitting there at the tax table? No, you wanted to go to a good organization in a place where you wanted to live, where you wanted to raise your children and send them to school. I wanted to have good teammates, so you would have a chance to win.
“Could it be a bit of a factor if everything else was equal?” I guess, but that’s not it.
Now, let’s be clear – we see states without tax with an advantage, so we are not ready to agree with Bettman that this problem is “ridiculous”. But after Interviews the Executive Director of the NHL Marty Walsh players association in NovemberAnd after hearing Bettman’s response to Bissonnette, our position has evolved.
In this case, we must give credit to Bettman. Part of his work as a commissioner made good arguments for the decisions of the League. And in this case, he did exactly that. And as Walsh said, finding the type of mechanism to equalize the tax situations of the league is almost impossible.
If teams without tax have an advantage, it is because they are managed by very intelligent people
Funny, no one has really heard of the tax advantage that the Florida panthers Supposedly having when they picked Gustav for derogations five years ago because no one else wanted it.
But this is where our philosophy has evolved: there are other scenarios where certain teams would have an advantage, and you do not see the teams shouting for elements of New Labor Deal to solve them.
For example, the weak Canadian dollar could be considered a problem for Canadian team owners, but if you really think about it, it could be shot as a sale of sales to free agents and players planning to be treated in Canada.
After all, if you make American money like all players and play on a Canadian market, your cost of living is much better than if you were on an American market. Let’s say you get $ 1.33 CDN. For each US dollar – Isn’t that a huge victory for you as a player? Your money would be improved by a third if you are on a Canadian market. So why don’t Canadian teams sell this angle?
We want the playing field to be as level as possible while being fair for teams that succeed more than others. That’s why We always think that a luxury tax would be an excellent solution for the NHLIn the same way as in the NBA. But clearly, the League prefers its hard salary ceiling, and this is unlikely that it will change, even with a new collective agreement to come next year. It’s just the reality of the situation.
As Walsh said Thn.comThere are many variables involved with taxes, and as Bettman noted, the more important factors in players’ decisions in the place where playing have more to do with the way the teams are managed and the competition of their lists. So you can see why there is a consensus between the league and the players in this regard.
Bissonnette had the right to raise the subject before Bettman, but the commissioner held on this front and more or less ended the debate for the moment. This can come back to the road, but whoever holds his breath for a change of soon needs all the luck he can get.
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