[OutsiderFan]

Gotta admit, I reacted far too much based on what the headline said than the bullet points posted. Those sure leave a lot of room for interpretation.

I do see NC Sen. Richard Burr now wants to introduce legislation that would treat a scholarship as income for tax purposes if athletes Cashin on NIL income. That seems a bit absurd. Tax NIL income, sure, but scholarships?  Basically he is saying he wants to tax NIL income double; you pay for it when you get NIL income, and then have to use the rest of it to pay taxes on your scholarship.

May I direct you to this earlier post of mine that, IIRC, was pooh-pooh'd at the time: 

Now factor in that if they were being compensated as employees, they'd need to pay taxes on it [scholarship and NIL income], which suddenly strips their take-home amount by at least 1/3, probably more. Right now, Uncle Sam is subsidizing their compensation by making it all tax-free. The straw-man cellist comparator everyone likes to mention who works side gigs and to generate income from their talents? Oh right, they would need to pay taxes on those gigs.

Quite frankly, if the scholarship, room, board, and misc. expenses stipend is what allows a football player to have the time and resources to play the sport that generates himself $500k of NIL income per year, I have absolutely no idea why Uncle Sam, you, and me, should be subsidizing his income by making the financial support than enables him to do it tax free. If it's a free market, like so many want it to be, then tax it the way you tax all income in a free market!

That’s a reasonable point. My inclination is to say it’s inequitable to tax a kid for a scholarship when the school is making so much money off him. But this whole situation is full of inequities all over the place. Value of a Stanford full ride vs. San Jose State one. Women’s sports vs. Men’s. Revenue sports vs. non. Olympic sports like swimming vs. Team sports like Football. And on and on. 

The good news is a consensus has developed that agrees college athletes should be allowed to collect income off their NIL. Now we must see how it plays out. Each Division has been tasked with developing guidelines that can be implemented by Jan 2021.

[OutsiderFan]

Gotta admit, I reacted far too much based on what the headline said than the bullet points posted. Those sure leave a lot of room for interpretation.

I do see NC Sen. Richard Burr now wants to introduce legislation that would treat a scholarship as income for tax purposes if athletes Cashin on NIL income. That seems a bit absurd. Tax NIL income, sure, but scholarships?  Basically he is saying he wants to tax NIL income double; you pay for it when you get NIL income, and then have to use the rest of it to pay taxes on your scholarship.

May I direct you to this earlier post of mine that, IIRC, was pooh-pooh'd at the time: 

Now factor in that if they were being compensated as employees, they'd need to pay taxes on it [scholarship and NIL income], which suddenly strips their take-home amount by at least 1/3, probably more. Right now, Uncle Sam is subsidizing their compensation by making it all tax-free. The straw-man cellist comparator everyone likes to mention who works side gigs and to generate income from their talents? Oh right, they would need to pay taxes on those gigs.

Quite frankly, if the scholarship, room, board, and misc. expenses stipend is what allows a football player to have the time and resources to play the sport that generates himself $500k of NIL income per year, I have absolutely no idea why Uncle Sam, you, and me, should be subsidizing his income by making the financial support than enables him to do it tax free. If it's a free market, like so many want it to be, then tax it the way you tax all income in a free market!

That’s a reasonable point. My inclination is to say it’s inequitable to tax a kid for a scholarship when the school is making so much money off him. But this whole situation is full of inequities all over the place. Value of a Stanford full ride vs. San Jose State one. Women’s sports vs. Men’s. Revenue sports vs. non. Olympic sports like swimming vs. Team sports like Football. And on and on. 

The good news is a consensus has developed that agrees college athletes should be allowed to collect income off their NIL. Now we must see how it plays out. Each Division has been tasked with developing guidelines that can be implemented by Jan 2021.