Arguments aside, some, including Matt Gardner, executive director of the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP), said the law including sports franchises in the Goodwill tax write-off was a bad one.
In a blog post, Gardner said, “It’s bad enough that the goodwill tax rule allows companies to deduct costs they may never incur — but it’s even worse that wealthy team owners can bid up the asking price of their teams as a tax shelter.”
Gardner’s solution called for Congress at least to reverse the 2004 change that invited sports team owners to use “Goodwill.”
A better response, he said, would be to get rid of the 1993 law that allowed corporations to write off the value of intangible assets in the first place.
