College football stars might be getting special treatment in Mississippi after the House of Representatives passed a bill that will make their NIL compensation tax-free.
State Representatives Fred Shanks ( R - Gold Coast ) and Jonathon McMillan (R - Deviney Construction) sponsored HB# 4014. Section 4 of the bill states:
The words "gross income" do not include the following items of income which shall be exempt from taxation under this article: (ss) Amounts received as NIL compensation. For the purposes of this paragraph (ss): (i) "Intercollegiate athlete" means an individual who enrolls in and participates in an intercollegiate athletics program at a postsecondary educational institution located in Mississippi. (ii) "NIL compensation" means any money, goods, or services provided to an intercollegiate athlete, while enrolled at a postsecondary educational institution located in Mississippi, in exchange for the use of the athlete's name, image, or likeness, including revenue-sharing or name, image, and likeness payments from a postsecondary educational institution or a third-party.
The bill passed 76-32:
Nurses, teachers, pipe fitters, police officers all must pay taxes while Jontavious and Braxton get to spend their tax-free NIL money on Lambos.
There is nothing "good government" or conservative about this measure. The knuckleheads in the Senate will probably pass the bill. We can only hope Congress will one day outlaw these tax exemptions.
75 comments:
Other states have done it, WTFN!
Its a recruiting tool, duh!
Priorities, priorities, priorities
6:04, Only state has done it: Arkansas.
https://www.ncsl.org/state-legislatures-news/details/new-college-recruiting-pitch-tax-free-nil-earnings
A similar measure even failed in Alabama, of all places.
There is no end to this NIL debacle.
Does their income even reach the threshold of tax liability?
No no & heck no. Have you lost your minds Shanks & others.
No one should get a free pass on income tax.
I'm three days older than dirt, and they don't give me a break.
Interesting how the politicians will pass legislation giving tax relief to paying players to play, but lots of hardworking Mississippians could only dream of getting this kind of attention from lawmakers.
Socialism done come to Mississippi via the legislature. Just give it away ladies and gentlemen.
Insane….If they only learn ONE thing while enrolled in “higher education “ it should be to pay your taxes!
Fred Shanks is my representative, he just lost my vote going forward. What a frikking joke of a bill, whoever came up with this mish mash of legislation needs a lobotomy.
College football has maybe 10 years left before it implodes.
No taxes for athletes who will bail on Mississippi as soon as they can get a better offer but the rest of us have to wait a decade or more for the elimination of the income tax. That's great Republican leadership for you.
No one? Seriously? I am income tax exempt because I am disabled and receive an industrial disability pension after being shot as a LEO in another state. The same exemption applies to disabled veterans.
Yet, I can't legally place a bet on the Kentucky Derby from my phone....
If there was some kind of line item give away to the pot industry in the bill then Yancey would have voted for it. Take a look at his latest campaign finance report.
Give them tax breaks if they promise to stay here one day past 365 days. They’ll say no thanks!
Exactly! I just filed my 2025 Federal and MS income tax returns. Neither gave me a break. People love to say Social Security is tax free..BS! I worked my way through college with no debt but I never got a tax break. I’ll be watching to see how my elected officials vote on this and will adjust my vote accordingly in the next election.
Politicians hate you and only want to fund their pet projects. These clowns would let players sleep with their daughters if they thought it could win them an Egg Bowl. Disgraceful.
Absolutely ridiculous. A spit in the eye of every working taxpaying citizen of this state.
O-H NO. I even had to pay income tax on jury pay.
@7:42pm 10 is generous. It’s more like 5.
6:24 - The Ole Miss NIL spreads around between 10 - 11.5 million per year for their team. MSU spends between 6.5 - 8 million per annum according to Gemini 3 AI. A roster size maxes out at 75 people, and the highest paid on either of these teams is paid between $4 and $5 million. He seems to be a fine young man; but he and all the others should be paying income taxes just like everyone else!
Whatever it takes for Ole Miss to recruit the best subaverages to play football and pretend to be college students so the white collar criminals in Oxford can be entertained.
Celeste Hurst, you just lost my vote in the next election cycle!
You are not exempt from paying taxes you just receive funds that are not taxable. Even quadruple amputees have to pay income tax if they make enough taxable income.
In the whole scheme it's probably not that much tax money -- but it's every bit about the principle and optics. What a slap in the face to all the hard-working tax-paying young people across the state. Mr. Shanks, I hope that piece of legislation just ended your political career.
You could make a good argument that if any of these Mississippi NIL players are making more than 50k then they already are destined to be disabled. Parkinsons, CTE, repeated head injuries and orthopaedic injuries, taking drugs of various sorts to kill pain and grow muscles, psychological issues of various sorts up to acts of violence against others and suicide; none of it's good in the short run even.
This must be wonderfully comforting to all the Mississippi farmers who're having to go out of business, this year, and who are wondering how to pay the taxes on their land.
Oh, well, there are more important things to be considered. Hey! I just got a great idea for a song, sung to the tune of 'Bells Will be Ringing': 'Jocks We'll be Sniffing'. I bet AI could finish writing it, and even generate a video featuring all our favorite athletes and lawmakers.
No 18 year old is making decisions based on state income taxes. This is stupid.
What about no income taxes for anybody with a PhD? Or no income taxes for board certified teachers? I could go on.
Everyone should start telling every Legislator they see in person what a POS they are to their face...especially if they remain quiet on the subject because they are complicit.
The opening post is bullshit. Which other states? Other than states that already do not have a state income tax, Arkansas is the only state that exempted the 'jock tax'.
Must be an echo in here. Same thing is said about the failed school-swap debacle.
Worshipped these otherwise worthless ball chasers will just continue the downward spiral of Western Civilization. Put a mic in their face and most of them speak a pidgin dialect and few can even speak in complete sentences. Literally repeating the collapse of Rome before our eyes.
Years ago the legislature passed a rule exempting certain sales from sales taxes. Yours truly started a business selling those items only to find out during the audit that the words written didn’t mean what was written. Fines and penalties paid. Lesson learned. Fark the tax commission and their bs interpretation of rules. Let these idiots think they are exempt and watch them drop out of the state when uncle sugar holds out the hand demanding their share.
Ole Miss does not need a lobbyist. Half the legislature is their "lobby". The rest can pound sand.
This is the one area that Mississippi will lead the way! Really!
How ridiculous has sports and money become? There is on football player, NFL Dallas Cowboys, paid $60,000,000/year… that is $164,385/day…$6849/hr… “the height of the ridiculous “
That’s the beginning and end of that!
There is no plausible reason or excuse for exempting NIL income. As others have said, it is an insult to Mississippians who actually work for a living. You don't have to be an idiot to be elected to the MS legislature, but, apparently, it helps.
just more proof that the current MS house is toothless. How about you guys grow a pair and stop passing crap bills. And Lamar's comment that these athletes incur penalties because they are not knowledgeable is laughable. I hope somebody uses that argument against the DOR soon. "I'm too stupid to be penalized".... On another thought, wouldn't such be unconstitutional. Go back to when MS lost the case where they taxed all retirement except PERS. I believe that was ruled unconstitutional and the resolution was to make all retirement exempt. So if NIL is exempt and NIL is treated as contract labor for "name image and likeness", who else is paid for that? TV personalities, news anchors, musicians, etc??
what rock have you been living under.......
His well is shallow.
Same!!!
I will inform my office manager to keep up with the political campaigns of Messrs. Shanks and McMillan next year. Their opponents will get a campaign contribution from me.
Exactly!!! And the house members that voted for it are also stupid.
At this rate, they are destined to be MS House members.
I think we do about $30 million a year in NIL between all universities. You think if you came into $30 million the state wouldn't want their taxes?
Florida, Texas, and Tennessee have no state income tax. They dont need such a bill. Alabama and Georgia work around it.
Nurses, teachers, pipe fitters, police officers all must pay taxes while Jontavious and Braxton get to spend their tax-free NIL money on Lambos?
Nurses etc also have to go to work while NIL Bentley Boys don’t go to class. “We ain’t come to play class.
We come to play fewtball”
This is the engineered outcome of LiberaLtarian Tax Dodgers grooming Bubba, who gets an EITC “tax refund” after paying no FIT, to autonomically blurt “Mah taxes is too high..” as he spends the extra tax money paid by the MiddleClass to offset that on a big screen TV, in order to cheer on Mr. NIL No Taxes on the field, while Mr CEO No Taxes cheers them on from the skybox alongside Senator Blutarsky.
Walmart trots them TVs out on January 1st and will front you yo EITC “refund” the same day.
No class, No Taxes, No Worries. Brought to you by The Department of Football and Tax Dodging at your local SEC D1 “Educational” Institution. Not necessarily coming to the NFL soon since we are headed to 38 year old NIL players who are in their 20th year as a grad student.
Fred Shanks IS the fumbling, bumbling goober I thought he was. It's past time to get him out of there. What a putz...I bet his car detailing buddy has more brain cells than he does, and that's saying something.
What a freaking joke! If this is signed into law, it will be another reason to no longer support college sports.
Even if this was to pass, wouldn't these paid mercenaries be required to pay taxes when playing in another state that has a state income tax?
If they make NIL tax free, they need to make the MS National Guard's pay tax free as well...
Miss. Today busted balls on a couple of powerful legislators for 100K party weekend.
Another reason I'm happy to have detached.
Legislature is made up of a bunch of whores selling it to any and every one for any price. But posters on this site too busy worrying about college football players.
Anybody remember, back during a farm crisis - a big one - when Farm Bureau's newsletter was crowing about the company's charity for impoverished retired baseball players? People were losing their farms, right and left, and here an entity pretending to advocate for farmers, was giving money to athletes?
There was much hate. There were comments. There were plenty of observations (and letters) along the lines of, "I don't pay my premiums, so you guys can collect autographs", and "Instead of lowering our premiums, or bailing-out a few farmers in crisis, you're using our money, so insurance executives will have excuses for standing around in locker rooms, checking-out other guys' junk?"
A lot of people switched insurors. Maybe Mississippi needs to switch-out some lawmakers.
Ridiculous. This just shows how dumb our legislators are. Do they think this will go over well with any voters?
Taxes are for common people. This is football. We must keep things in perspective. We have always kept things in perspective in Mississippi. Always. Remember this is football!
What a laughingstock Shanks is…the mayoral campaign and now this joke. Too much hanging out with Clay Edwards is warping his brain.
Seems there could be an equal protection/opportunity argument here. If Johnny football gets the exemption, why don't I as John Citizen?
I don't see a socially redeeming quality to this exemption like a veteran, LEO or first responder disabled in the line of duty.
this proves that regardless of how fouled up this state is , nothing takes precedence more so than chicken shit college football.
The poorest state in the union is doing everything it can to get rid of any state income tax it can. This is a dumb idea, and I hate paying taxes.
Well played. The truth hurts, as it should.
Fred Shanks went to Miss. State. I guess he's trying to level the playing field for his team.
I am glad I lived in the time that College Football was just an entertaining sport.
Before it was ruined by NIL and idiotic politics like this.
Same. Fred Shanks just lost my vote.
Takes a bigger dozer than this to level that playing field.
They'd put you in jail for taxes on that.
Shanks isn’t afraid to introduce some crappy legislation…. Leftistlation?
So does that mean I get a refund on all the taxes I paid when I worked my way through college?
These NIL athletes normally receive a Form 1099 from the university that pays them. It is the athletes responsibility to pay the state and Federal government. The IRS is going to get there share regardless. Hopefully someone is advising these young kids.
Given the effort to phase out state income tax I don’t understand why. Florida, Texas, and Tennessee have a soon to be negated advantage. The optics on this are just awful.
"Too much hanging out with Clay Edwards is warping his brain".
LOL !
Post a Comment