Congressman introduces bill to strip tax-exempt status

Everyone is weighing in on the PGA Tour and LIV Golf merging and most are not in favor of the move.

Add Congressman John Garamendi to that list.

Garamendi (D-CA) introduced the “No Corporate Tax Exemption for Professional Sports Act” Wednesday following the unification of the PGA Tour and Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, which runs LIV Golf.

The legislation would end the tax loophole the PGA Tour and other professional sports leagues exploit to avoid paying federal corporate income tax. These professional sports leagues each generate more than $100 million annually in corporate income, which would be taxable under the Garamendi bill.

In 2015, the NFL voluntarily stopped claiming exemption from the federal corporate income tax under an exemption originally intended only for amateur sports.

Now that #SaudiaArabia backed #LIV has taken over #PGA, the Saudi government will exploit the PGA’s tax-exempt status to avoid paying a penny on the billions of dollars they’ll make while sports washing their human rights abuses.

I just introduced legislation to prevent this:

— John Garamendi (@RepGaramendi) June 7, 2023

“Saudi Arabia cannot be allowed to sports wash its government’s horrific human rights abuses and the 2018 murder of American-based journalist Jamal Khashoggi by taking over the PGA,” Garamendi said in a release. “PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan should be ashamed of the blatant hypocrisy and about-face he and the rest of PGA’s leadership demonstrated by allowing the sovereign wealth fund of a foreign government with an unconscionable human rights record to take over an iconic American sports league and avoid paying a penny in federal corporate income tax.”

Garamendi added the merger “flies in the face of the PGA players” who turned down the PIF’s money to join LIV and “align themselves with the right side of history and human decency.”

“The notion that the Saudi Sovereign Wealth Fund would pay zero dollars in taxes on their blood money and potentially billions of dollars in profits while countless American families pay their fair share while struggling to make ends meet is ludicrous. My commonsense legislation would right this wrong and bring some much-needed accountability to this matter,” Garamendi concluded.