A respected financial services professional, Todd Goldring serves as Citigroup director where he heads event-driven sales. Passionate about sports, Todd Goldring enjoys activities such as golf and tennis, and follows sports such as football, basketball, and baseball.
The professional sports arena is just as much about strategic trading and asset allocation as Wall Street, and one of the hallmarks of contemporary sports is offseason trades. A recent example involves the Tampa Bay Rays, who made a slew of offseason cost-cutting moves that dismantled a respectable, mid-level Major League Baseball team.
For those who bemoan the gutting of teams in favor of the bottom line, new changes coming in force due to the recently passed Tax Cuts and Jobs Act may result in fewer trades in the future. Traditionally, teams would use tax code Section 1031 provisions to claim tax-free like-kind exchanges when trading players’ contracts. With player contracts considered business assets, no gain or loss would be registered in cases where cash was not involved.
Beginning in 2018, sports teams may need to start recognizing taxable gains when trading players. The result is that there may be a surge in player-for-draft picks and cash-for-player transactions, as well as alternative trading procedures designed to avoid player trades that fall under the provisions of the new tax laws.
