Another Tax Lesson from Pro Boxing

In April I had a post about "How Kennedy Tax Cuts Changed Pro Boxing," which generated a lively discussion about taxes with more than 60 comments.  Now there's a new story about professional boxing, with some important lessons about taxes.  From the New York Post:

The first boxing event at the new Yankee Stadium last Saturday was a "major success" according to Yankees Chief Operating Officer Lonn Trost, but that doesn't mean boxing will become a regular feature of the Stadium.

Availability of Yankee Stadium is an issue, but not nearly as big an issue as taxes. According to Trost, the tax on a fighter's purse is significantly higher for non-residents of New York than it is in other states, which would make it difficult to bring a match like the proposed superfight between Floyd Mayweather, Jr., and Manny Pacquiao to Yankee Stadium.

"Cotto and Foreman could come here for the first fight because the boxers felt they wouldn't be overtaxed because they're residents," Trost said. "We'd love to do Mayweather-Pacquiao, but I believe both of them are non-residents and the tax could be as much as 13 percent on the purse, where the tax out in Vegas is zero. That's a big difference."

Here's some excellent commentary from Jonathan Tobin, "High Taxes Drive Away Industries … and Boxers":

 "While liberal advocates for higher taxes routinely claim they are doing so to help ordinary New Yorkers, they ought to consider that in making it unattractive for fighters to perform here, they are actually robbing the people from the South Bronx and elsewhere in the city who work in the many jobs created every night Yankee Stadium is open. The failure to bring more such exhibitions to the city illustrates the simple truth that, once again, liberal economics has scored a technical knockout on the economic well-being of working-class New Yorkers."

MP: As I pointed out previously in the last post, there are a few basic tax lessons here: 1) If you tax something, you get less of it, and 2) if you cut tax rates, you might get more tax revenues.

HT: Carlo DiPietro