NYT complains Florida taxes are too low

New York may never win another Stanley Cup unless Florida imposes a state income tax

Canada’s Benjamin Franklin—Lord Stanley of Preston— once said. “In this world nothing is certain except death, taxes and the NHL.

OK, maybe I made that up but it is befitting the manufacture of a controversy of the New York Times and others that live in states with high state income taxes. Their NHL teams suck while the Florida Panthers, Tampa Bay Lightning, Vegas Golden Knights, Nashville Predators, Dallas Stars, and Seattle Kraken all flourish in states that do not tax income.

Canada has not won a Stanley Cup in 32 seasons although the Edmonton Oilers may break that that spell this year now that Canadians rid themselves of Justin Castreau after President Trump humiliated him.

But Canada’s taxes remain the same.

While Canada’s top marginal tax rate is 33% and America’s is 37%, the top marginal rates for its provinces range from 11.5% to 21.8%.

The combined provincial and national tax rates top 50% in 8 provinces. Who is going to argue for $2 million more a year just to receive less than a million more? Take the lower pay and sign with Tampa Bay for the better weather.

Only California is in that club at 13.3%, although New York, New Jersey and Washington, D.C. are just under 11%.

Let’s look at those California teams, shall we? The San Jose have not won a divisional title since 2010-11, the Anaheim Ducks in 2016-17 and the Los Angeles Kings in 1990-91.

The New Jersey Devils have not won a title since 2009-10 when the Buffalo Sabres last won their division. The New York Rangers won their division two years ago, but the New York Islanders last won their division in 1987-88 when Reagan was president.

The one exception are the Washington Capitals who won their division this year and won the Stanley Cup in 2017-18.

The New York Times is sour on this lack of titles. It does not blame terrible owners and front offices. It blames Florida for cheating. Yes, those wily Floridians dumped their state income tax in 1858 knowing that 59 years later the NHL would come into existence and eventually their state would get a couple of teams.

Never trust Florida, man.

NYT reported:

At the outset of a Stanley Cup Final featuring a Florida-based team for the sixth straight year, NHL deputy commissioner Bill Daly told reporters that there will be no changes included in the upcoming collective bargaining agreement to account for any of the perceived advantages teams based in tax-friendly jurisdictions enjoy.

While Daly acknowledged that some of the league’s clubs have raised that as an issue, he said the NHL’s head office doesn’t “share the level of concern that they have.”

“These imbalances have existed forever,” Daly said Wednesday. “There’s nothing new here. There are so many reasons why a player may choose to play in a particular location, for a particular team, for a particular coach that have nothing to do with the tax situation in that market.

“So, I don’t think it’s anything we’re going to address proactively as part of this collective bargaining negotiation.”

Bettman also said on a sports TV show, “When the Florida teams weren't good, which was for about 17 years, nobody said anything about it. For those of you who played, were you sitting there at the tax table? No, you wanted to go to a good organization and a place where you wanted to live, where you wanted to raise your kids and send them to school. You wanted to play in a first-class arena with a first-class training facility, with an owner, an organization, a GM, and a coach you were comfortable with.”

As much as I would like to credit state income taxes for all the hockey success in Florida, I know it is more complicated than that. As a longtime Browns fan (it ended when they dumped Baker Mayfield) I know that good players don’t want to play on a bad team. To lure good players, Cleveland teams had to pay above the market value. This was known as a Cleveland Tax, which ended when the Browns began winning but returned when they signed Deshaun Watson.

Longtime NHL reporter Sean Shapiro agrees with me, which makes him a genius.

He wrote, “In the end a positive tax situation is a tool for player recruitment, we can’t deny that, but it’s also not this magic wand that makes teams good and supersedes everything else.”

If you tax cigarettes to reduce smoking, then you tax income to reduce working.

But not taxing income does more than attract good players; it attracts better managers who would rather keep their salaries for themselves.

What is interesting in this debate is that NYT and other sports media outlets are arguing that it is unfair of Florida and others to not tax income instead of arguing that California, DC, New Jersey, New York and the provinces of Canada should eliminate them. That would make more sense because the government uses taxes to modify the behavior of its people.

Death, taxes and the NHL may be inevitable but the taxes don’t have to be that high.