Panthers Get Big Tax Break

[onmyown]

12 minutes ago, 1of10Charnatives said:

If the city were still coming out ahead despite the tax breaks you wouldn’t hear anything from me but they’re not, and the experts pretty much all agree on that. Thus it isn’t the discount scenario you laid out, it’s more like for every 2 dollars you give them in tax breaks, you might get a dollar back in revenue that they are responsible for. Do some research into what economists say about public funding of private football stadiums.

More complex than that. It’s not just the stadium, it’s what it bring to the city as a whole. Not only for right now but for the future. It may not pay off until later. It may not pay off until it attracts things other than football. Just being something that attracts someone to move there brings more taxes and more benefits. And all things aren’t money. It brings other aspects other than pure income as well. These things are near impossible to quantify and put a price on.

But stadiums are the luxury...they’re not free. People  seem to have the mindset no one should pay anything. It doesn’t make sense. Yea in a perfect world no one would care about sports or any other luxury and all the money would go to our youth, charity and ridding the world of poverty. So yea from that extremely unrealistic view it sucks to pay for it.

With that in mind, for myself, I’d pay more taxes for a team and stadium. They won’t be crippling and are worth it. Not just as a fan but a person invested and living in a the city. I’d want to live in a city that can afford to make this a feasible option, it shows degree economic stability. How much will taxes be raised directly due to the stadium? And then how will those taxes directly affect someone who has residency and doesn’t spend money on luxury things...events, tourism (like hotels), travel, gambling? Then minus the benefits? I’d imagine very very little.

[TheMaulClaw]

48 minutes ago, 1of10Charnatives said:

Nope. Sorry, do some research, economists are almost universally against public funds for private sports stadiums, especially football, because the ecomomic gains don’t come anywhere close to outweighing the tax breaks.

I mean they're paying taxes on 215 million. That's more money then if the stadium was gone. And youd have to supply some number as it relates specifically to the Panthers for me to believe that.  I think there is a lot of tax revenue created. From restaurant tax, hotel tax, to pay roll tax. Especially since BOA was never publically funded to begin with.

[1of10Charnatives]

1 minute ago, onmyown said:

More complex than that. It’s not just the stadium, it’s what it bring to the city as a whole. Not only for right now but for the future. It may not pay off until later. It may not pay off until it attracts things other than football. These things are near impossible to quantify.

But stadiums are the luxury...they’re not free. People  seem to have the mindset no one should pay anything. It doesn’t make sense. Yea in a perfect world no one would care about sports or any other luxury and all the money would go to our youth, charity and ridding the world of poverty. So yea from that extremely unrealistic view it sucks to pay for it.

 

Economists have taken into account the “economic impact” of a stadium not just its direct revenue. Again please avail yourself of some of the abundant information on the topic and you will see that credible experts in their field have a near universal consensus that public financing of stadiums is a bad deal for taxpayers.

With regards to the mindset of no one wanting to pay for anything: If the city of Charlotte owned the Panthers or the state of NC I could see this argument being applicable in the way you want it to be, but they don’t. David Tepper owns the Panthers, the Panthers are already a highly profitable private business. Do other private businesses get their facilities built at public expense? No.

Now if Tepper wants to sell the Panthers to the city or state the way things are done in Green Bay, then I’ll take that deal in a heartbeat and be happy to spend money out of the team’s profits to build the team a new stadium.

What I am opposed to is the general trend of large businesses like the NFL transferring costs onto the public while privatizing all of the gains. We get all of the downside while Tepper, other NFL owners get all the upside.

[1of10Charnatives]

14 minutes ago, TheMaulClaw said:

I mean they're paying taxes on 215 million. That's more money then if the stadium was gone. And youd have to supply some number as it relates specifically to the Panthers for me to believe that.  I think there is a lot of tax revenue created. From restaurant tax, hotel tax, to pay roll tax. Especially since BOA was never publically funded to begin with.

Read.

https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2018/11/sports-stadiums-can-be-bad-cities/576334/

https://dontmesswithtaxes.typepad.com/No_Public_Money_for_Stadia.pdf

https://www.brookings.edu/articles/sports-jobs-taxes-are-new-stadiums-worth-the-cost/

https://www.forbes.com/sites/jasonnotte/2018/08/17/your-tax-dollars-at-play-how-stadium-tax-scams-pick-fans-pockets/#17531af76fb9

http://www.realclearsports.com/articles/2017/09/06/public_funding_for_private_stadiums_is_bad_policy_98532.html

 

While it is true that Bof A was not originally publicly funded, the city spent 87 million on renovations. That’s a hefty chunk of change.

https://www.bizjournals.com/charlotte/blog/queen_city_agenda/2013/04/charlotte-council-oks-875-million.html

[onmyown]

8 minutes ago, 1of10Charnatives said:

Economists have taken into account the “economic impact” of a stadium not just its direct revenue. Again please avail yourself of some of the abundant information on the topic and you will see that credible experts in their field have a near universal consensus that public financing of stadiums is a bad deal for taxpayers.

With regards to the mindset of no one wanting to pay for anything: If the city of Charlotte owned the Panthers or the state of NC I could see this argument being applicable in the way you want it to be, but they don’t. David Tepper owns the Panthers, the Panthers are already a highly profitable private business. Do other private businesses get their facilities built at public expense? No.

Now if Tepper wants to sell the Panthers to the city or state the way things are done in Green Bay, then I’ll take that deal in a heartbeat and be happy to spend money out of the team’s profits to build the team a new stadium.

What I am opposed to is the general trend of large businesses like the NFL transferring costs onto the public while privatizing all of the gains. We get all of the downside while Tepper, other NFL owners get all the upside.

So how do you feel about government excluding religion from taxes, which amounts to roughly 100 billion a year btw and has almost zero benefit? Kind of a big deal when a couple billion dollars (couple hundred million for tax payers) for a stadium for one year only is an issue.

Do you think a stadium is comparable to other things we as citizens get the ‘downside’ of but no the upside when it comes to taxes?

I don’t. I don’t think it’s even in the same realm. But the media puts emphasis on it and that’s why ‘concerned, educated’ people all of a sudden have a voice. Just funny to me because people who do actually pay attention and research the fraud of taxes can’t even be distracted by something so minute.

I am all about exploiting the injustices of the tax system, but if you had to make a list. This doesn’t make it.

[1of10Charnatives]

2 minutes ago, onmyown said:

So how do you feel about government excluding religion from taxes, which amounts to roughly 100 billion a year btw and has almost zero benefit? Kind of a big deal when a couple billion dollars to a stadium for one year only is an issue.

Do you think a stadium is comparable to other things we as citizens get the ‘downside’ of but no the upside when it comes to taxes?

I don’t. I don’t think it’s even in the same realm. But the media puts emphasis on it and that’s why ‘concerned, educated’ people all of a sudden have a voice. Just funny to me because people who do actually pay attention and research the fraud of taxes won’t even be distracted by something to minute.

Just because there are other problems doesn’t mean we should ignore this one. The sums of money are not minute p, nor imo are the ethical considerations. I’m for eliminating tax breaks for religion but that is separate from whether the public should fund football stadiums. Let’s not pretend we can do one but not the other.

[onmyown]

5 minutes ago, 1of10Charnatives said:

Just because there are other problems doesn’t mean we should ignore this one. The sums of money are not minute p, nor imo are the ethical considerations. I’m for eliminating tax breaks for religion but that is separate from whether the public should fund football stadiums. Let’s not pretend we can do one but not the other.

I’m not saying not to be concerned, I’m just saying when it comes to people educating themselves and deciding to have a voice on something, prioritizing would be good idea. People who complain about a tax for the stadium but have been silent about everything and anything else their taxes go to (which is undoubtably the majority of people protesting this tax) is dumbfounding and irresponsible.

And I don’t think it’s that much different of an issue other than one having a much much bigger impact. It’s my tax money someone is taking. I’d rather fund a stadium than fund someone else’s religion.

[1of10Charnatives]

1 minute ago, onmyown said:

I’m not saying not to be concerned, I’m just saying when it comes to people educating themselves and deciding to have a voice on something, prioritizing would be good idea. People who complain about a tax for the stadium but have been silent about everything and anything else their taxes go to (which is undoubtably the majority of people protesting this tax) is dumbfounding and irresponsible.

I think we see eye to eye on that.

[Snake]

4 hours ago, R0CKnR0LLA said:

This is property tax which funds schools, which includes school lunch programs. So it's completely possible that this directly leads to children going hungry.

But hey, who cares about schools, right? Better that money goes into the pocket of a billionaire.

Lunch is funded free federally but nice try. Also all title 1 schools have free lunch and breakfast. See I know what I'm talking about can you say the same? Also Union County has some of the lowest pay wages for teachers(many getting wage freezing when at 5 years experience)in all of NC. So I would not go that route either. 

[TheMaulClaw]

5 hours ago, 1of10Charnatives said:

Read.

https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2018/11/sports-stadiums-can-be-bad-cities/576334/

https://dontmesswithtaxes.typepad.com/No_Public_Money_for_Stadia.pdf

https://www.brookings.edu/articles/sports-jobs-taxes-are-new-stadiums-worth-the-cost/

https://www.forbes.com/sites/jasonnotte/2018/08/17/your-tax-dollars-at-play-how-stadium-tax-scams-pick-fans-pockets/#17531af76fb9

http://www.realclearsports.com/articles/2017/09/06/public_funding_for_private_stadiums_is_bad_policy_98532.html

 

While it is true that Bof A was not originally publicly funded, the city spent 87 million on renovations. That’s a hefty chunk of change.

https://www.bizjournals.com/charlotte/blog/queen_city_agenda/2013/04/charlotte-council-oks-875-million.html

87 million really isnt much considering the city has benefited from the Panthers the past 24 years. That breaks down into a little over 3.5 million a year. I guarantee theyve seen more then that annually in tax collection. Prob just in property taxes.

The Panthers are def not contributing to any program cuts.

[1of10Charnatives]

1 hour ago, TheMaulClaw said:

87 million really isnt much considering the city has benefited from the Panthers the past 24 years. That breaks down into a little over 3.5 million a year. I guarantee theyve seen more then that annually in tax collection. Prob just in property taxes.

The Panthers are def not contributing to any program cuts.

So you didn't read any of the articles I linked. You keep repeating the same argument that tax revenue they bring in must outweigh the subsidies, but people who actually study this sort of thing for a living are saying nearly universally that public financing of private sports stadiums are a bad deal for taxpayers net. If you're interested in actually studying the facts and discussing it further, by all means, but if you're just going to repeat things that make it apparent you're not considering any information contrary to the opinion you started with, I'm not sure there's much to talk about.

Bottom line: actual economists who are professional experts and not someone offering a random opinion off the top of their head say no, benefits do not outweigh costs to the taxpayer. 

[1of10Charnatives]

4 hours ago, Snake said:

Lunch is funded free federally but nice try. Also all title 1 schools have free lunch and breakfast. See I know what I'm talking about can you say the same? Also Union County has some of the lowest pay wages for teachers(many getting wage freezing when at 5 years experience)in all of NC. So I would not go that route either. 

If you know what you're talking about then you would also know that Union County isn't the relevant taxing municipality, Mecklenburg is, and that teachers are overwhelmingly paid by the state, not local municipalities (most do kick in a small local supplement, but it is not a very significant portion of teacher pay. By example starting CMS teachers receive 5k local stipend on top of 35k base). 

Since Mecklenburg County is the relevant taxing authority for the stadium, where the property sits, discussion of teacher salaries in Union County isn't really relevant to any discussion of how tax funds affected by stadium taxes one way or the other are used.

[Pantherzack179812]

7 hours ago, 1of10Charnatives said:

If the city were still coming out ahead despite the tax breaks you wouldn’t hear anything from me but they’re not, and the experts pretty much all agree on that. Thus it isn’t the discount scenario you laid out, it’s more like for every 2 dollars you give them in tax breaks, you might get a dollar back in revenue that they are responsible for. Do some research into what economists say about public funding of private football stadiums.

Now if you wanna start talking about ending tax exemptions for religion I’m all ears. They always seem to want to tell their members how to vote but never wanna pay the admission price like the rest of us.

And the people who get jobs that otherwise wouldn't exist in your state? The only concern isn't ROI, the Panthers provide employment and traffic to local businesses. 

[TheMaulClaw]

36 minutes ago, 1of10Charnatives said:

So you didn't read any of the articles I linked. You keep repeating the same argument that tax revenue they bring in must outweigh the subsidies, but people who actually study this sort of thing for a living are saying nearly universally that public financing of private sports stadiums are a bad deal for taxpayers net. If you're interested in actually studying the facts and discussing it further, by all means, but if you're just going to repeat things that make it apparent you're not considering any information contrary to the opinion you started with, I'm not sure there's much to talk about.

Bottom line: actual economists who are professional experts and not someone offering a random opinion off the top of their head say no, benefits do not outweigh costs to the taxpayer. 

I understand what you're saying...but I dont think that it's the case in Charlotte. Most stadiums have been publically funded. These views of economist would apply to them. BOA is a different story. 83 million in public money over 24 years is chump change. Other cities are in for hundreds of millions. Obviously that would change the nature of the market. We are talking about the Charlotte market specifically...not public funding as a whole. Once again the Panthers have added to the economy and ultimately created more tax revenue then funds they've taken. 

 That is not the case for most teams as the majority of their stadiums are publically funded. It is however the case for the Panthers and Charlotte.

Just the Panthers players pay more then 3.5 mill a year in payroll taxes.