Tax Write-Offs?

Now that tax day has come and gone, it’s time to look at what could become the butt of many jokes. Sure, everyone dislikes taxes, but it must be particularly bad if you are a sports team owner who has made bad investments on free agents. If only it were possible for these agents to claim their poor investments as a loss. An excerpt from an article covering Arte Moreno’s bad investment is below.I encourage you to read the rest of the article; it is a humorous look at taxes from the team owner’s point of view:

You have to figure Arte Moreno will soon have a new appreciation for depreciation. That 10-year contract for Albert Pujols will cost the Angels owner $254 million over 10 years. And with Pujols earning only $12 million and $16 million in the first two years, the deal is backloaded so much that Moreno will be writing Pujols a check for more than $30 million in the year the deal expires just shy of the slugger’s 42nd birthday. Can Moreno write this off as a gambling loss? Greece and Fannie Mae might wind up looking good by comparison.

See Tax Day Madness: The 10 Players Owners Wish They Could Write Off, Yahoo!Sports, Apr. 16, 2012.

Special thanks to David S. Luber (Attorney at law, Florida Probate Attorney Wills and Estates Law Firm) for bringing this article to my attention.