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Players tax could sell idea
Tuesday, March 10, 1998 By Mark Belko, Post-Gazette Staff Writer
It looks as if Plan B is aptly named. Part of the financing package will rely on guys with last names of Belle, Bonds and Bonilla.
If Mayor Murphy and Allegheny County Commissioners Bob Cranmer and Mike Dawida get their way, players like baseball's Albert Belle -- he of the $11 million a year salary and foul disposition -- will help to pay for new stadiums for the Pirates and Steelers.
So would Barry Bonds and Bobby Bonilla, who left the Pirates for bigger paydays in other cities.
The local public officials are hoping to raise $7 million toward new digs for the two teams by taxing the wages of visiting ball players -- and hometown heroes who live in other states.
Under the plan unveiled yesterday, athletes who are not Pennsylvania residents would be hit with a 1 percent tax on that portion of their earnings related to their play in Pittsburgh.
In all, the $7 million would be a mere fraction of the $803 million needed to build the stadiums and expand the David L. Lawrence Convention Center.
But it could help in the public relations battle to sell the projects, particularly to those who are fed up with what they see as pampered, overpaid athletes.
The tax would take one of two forms. Players would be taxed either on the number of days they play in Pittsburgh or on the number of days they practice and play here, according to Dennis Troy, the county's deputy economic development director.
Dawida said players would be able to use taxes paid here as a write-off against taxes owed in their home states.
Taxes on visiting players' salaries are now imposed in Philadelphia, Kansas City, New York City and Detroit, said Timothy M. Slavish and Christopher Brewer, partners in the law firm of Thorp Reed & Armstrong, which has studied the issue for the city and county. It also has been under consideration in Massachusetts as part of a plan to build a new stadium for the New England Patriots.
In Philadelphia, visiting players are taxed based on the number of games they play there. For example, a football player who plays one game in the city would be taxed against one-sixteenth of his salary because NFL teams play 16 regular season games. The tax rate would be 4.16 percent -- the same as for Philadelphia suburbanites and other nonresidents who work in the city.
The Philadelphia tax has been in effect for seven years, but that city's finance director, Ben Hayllar, said he did not know how much money had been raised each year through the tax on athletes. It is applied to all entertainers -- not just ball players -- and even nicks movie stars who come into the city to do filming, based on the number of days they stay.
Players hate it, Hayllar said.
He considered the tax when he was finance director in Pittsburgh. The idea ultimately was abandoned, in part because city officials felt that, because of uniformity issues under the state Constitution, the tax would have to be levied against all entertainers, not just athletes.
That raised concerns it could drive acts like the Rolling Stones and Madonna to suburban venues or out of the region altogether. Plus, revenues were projected at less than $500,000 a year -- but that was before the explosion in the salaries of professional athletes.
However, Slavish and Brewer believe the city can tax athletes as a special class without imposing the levy on other entertainers and without violating the uniformity clause of the state Constitution. The city already has the ability under Act 511, the Local Tax Enabling Act, to impose the levy, the said. It would not take state legislation.
Steelers Vice President Art Rooney II said he believed there could be problems if the tax hits only athletes. He said the idea needed to be explored further, although he did not dismiss the concept.
"As I said, as long as it's something that would not put us at a competitive disadvantage, and it's something that's . . . similar to what they have in other cities, we'll look at it," he said.
Pirates Managing Partner Kevin McClatchy said the proposed payroll tax "doesn't worry us too much."
"I haven't seen enough of (the proposal), but from my understanding, it won't affect the players too much," he said.
Some Pirates players had mixed reactions to the proposal.
"If the players care anything about the City of Pittsburgh, we should support this," said Al Martin, the Pirates' player representative. "The whole project Downtown is so important, we've got to look at that as a positive. I was for the sales tax increase, and I'd be a hypocrite if I didn't support this because it's going to help the city of Pittsburgh dramatically. It's just going to make the city that much better."
Martin, who lives near Phoenix, joked that the plan wouldn't affect him "because I'll have a Pennsylvania driver's license on opening day."
Second baseman Tony Womack had a different view of the issue.
"I don't really care, but I don't think it's right that it would come out of our pockets. You'd think they would try something else before taxing people who don't live in Pennsylvania."
Only two of the players who are expected to be on the Pirates' 1998 roster, pitchers Chris Peters and Marc Wilkins, list Pennsylvania as their residence.
Staff writer Paul Meyer contributed to this report.
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