The IRS has issued a ruling allowing the Yankees to use PILOTS to float an additional $300 million of bonds to finance the New Yankee Stadium. Interestingly, the Daily News suggests the IRS may be giving the Yankees a special deal that won’t be available to other franchises. “The tax agency imposed tough new national regulations aimed at tightening up the use of tax-exempt financing for private businesses, including sports teams.” Of course, the IRS also had some nudging from the politically influential Rep. Charles Rangel (D-Harlem), head of the House Ways and Means Committee, who submitted a letter to the IRS advocating the Yankees’ position.
But that isn’t all. Regular readers may recall having seen the story about the city of New York allegedly falsifying the assessment of the stadium to give the Yankees a larger benefit. That issue is still alive and well, as this article in the New York Daily News makes clear. New York State Assemblyman Charles Brodsy had this to say about the city’s assessment, “This assessment was cooked. It was done in violation of sworn promises to the IRS. That, in and of itself, requires more investigation.”
It is fascinating to see the comments following the articles. As of my reading, the comments are nearly unanimous in their opposition or at least their disdain for the subsidies and the Yankees ticket pricing and request for subsidies.
Here is more on the NY case I found after making the original posting:
The recent announced sale for both Mets and Yankee stadium assets such as old seats, player lockers, etc, confirms once again the taxpayers and sports fans have been thrown another curve ball by Yankees and Mets owners. … Now they want to rip off taxpayers by keeping millions of dollars in proceeds from the sale of old stadium assets!
So, all you landlords out there…It seems that renters may ask you to let them rip up your property and sell it off piece by piece after you have built them a new place to rent.
