Allanfan20 wrote:Lets say a NY Knick player has a 1 year, 1 million dollar deal. How much of that does he actually get, after all the taxes and such. Does the BRI effect this contract? Or does the BRI simply effect actually getting the contract? Or both?
I'm not sure about normal tax etc, but from what I understand, under the last cba, the league would keep 8% of every players salary (this is what they mean when they talk of the escrow). If at the end of the year the total of every players salaries added together exceed the BRI figure (57% under the last cba), then the nba would keep whatever amount of the 8% escrow they needed to to make up for the difference. Last season, the nba ended up having to give all of the 8% back to the players because the total players salaries were under the 57% of BRI required.
A problem in the negotiations for this new cba is that the owners want initially to increase the escrow to 10%, but if that still isn't enough to make up for any overspend (which it may not be for the first few season as players are going down from 57% to 50%, and I really don't see how they are going to make the figures work out!), they want it to be more open ended, so the following season they could increase the escrow to make up for the previous season. The players oppose this on the basis that % could really spiral for a few years- they want it capped at 10%. I can see where the unions coming from, but at the same time they have agreed to 50% of BRI so how else are the owners going to get any overspend back?
So, I've just used an online tax calculator, and typed in 900,000 as the salary (the $1mil minus the 10% escrow), and it gave the take home pay as being approx $522,000- yikes! If a player got the same salary in a state that didn't have state income tax, then they would get around $580,000 (according to the tax calculator)
Throughout the lockout it keeps being said that big market teams like NY have an advantage- but we really don't when it comes to smaller contracts because at the end of the day, the players take home pay on a $1mil contract will be lower in NY than it would be in other states which have no income tax, and much lower rent/living costs. For example, on a MLE contract of $5mil, according to that same tax calculator, NY after tax pay would be $2,790,000 (approx), compared to $3,130,000 (approx) in say Florida, thats almost half a million difference- how is that fair?
