2023/2024 Trade Rumors and Speculation Thread

[GioforPM]

Originally Posted by TheIronMaiden

I think this is always over blown.

The way that sports players are taxed is complicated.

1. they get taxed based on where the games are played. For their home games they are taxed at whatever the rate is at the location of the arena. for the other 41 games they get taxed at the rate based on their tax address. A home in Florida for example. or Sweden, or Calgary.

2. as they earn their money they put it away into pensions ( or something like it) and they defer their tax for after their career when they will only be making $500,000 a year or whatever instead of being taxed on the millions right away. This is likely taxed based on the laws of where ever they live in their retirement.

This isn't 1980, these players have top of the line accountants talking with them and their agents every step of the way.

They can do that. But I don't think a lot do, probably way less than you'd think. And the big money only comes in the second half of the career - you can only defer for a short while. Players and agents mention tax a lot - it's not a non-factor.

[TheIronMaiden]

Originally Posted by GioforPM

They can do that. But I don't think a lot do, probably way less than you'd think. And the big money only comes in the second half of the career - you can only defer for a short while. Players and agents mention tax a lot - it's not a non-factor.

This is a little contradictory no?

Players who care about tax rates enough to avoid playing for certain teams don't leverage every tax advantage at their disposal on the advice of accountants who have been helping athletes maximize their income for decades?

[Pickle Juice]

I need some real rumors! Sec and Diss what's up?

[PepsiFree]

Originally Posted by GioforPM

They can do that. But I don't think a lot do, probably way less than you'd think. And the big money only comes in the second half of the career - you can only defer for a short while. Players and agents mention tax a lot - it's not a non-factor.

I’m pretty sure Conroy, as an American who played in both Canada and the US, has said that the tax issue is overblown by media and fans, and the benefits of living in Canadian cities while making US dollars far-outweighs any tax issues.

[shutout]

https://theathletic.com/4736680/2023...ston-carolina/

Athletics thoughts on Lindholm trade destinations
Not very much thought put into it.
Some very unrealistic destinations.
Most of their ideas don't come with any thoughts on possible returns.
Lazy writing at its finest from the Athletic.

Boston Bruins -

Carolina Hurricanes - Drury / Jarvis / Necas

Columbus Blue Jackets - Rosovic

Minnesota Wild - Rossi

Toronto Maple Leafs -

Vancouver Canucks -

[Toonage]

That was an odd article. Julian McKenzie really needs to stop with these.

Goes into detail for Carolina, who the Flames could target etc and then just fires off a few more teams and players without doing the same "deep" dive. Felt lazy.

To me this is part of the problem when east coast writers are assigned beat duty for Calgary. They don't care. And it shows.

[ResAlien]

The Athletic’s coverage of the Flames isn’t worth the price if you get it for free. I’m sure the guy tries but everything is so worthlessly superficial or outright wrong that the fan speculation in this thread provides more valuable insight than anything The Athletic craps out now.

[Nelson]

It felt like Julian was just saying why each destination wouldn’t work. It would’ve been nice to see him come up with realistic proposals that got over the obstacles.

[Toonage]

Athletic related - Yesterday there was an article titled the "most impressive moves of the off season" and the list was so suspect (Connor Brown to the Oilers for example) that the writer got a ton of heat in the comments and changed the article title to most savvy moves. Thats kind of the Athletic's hockey coverage in a nutshell to me.

[GioforPM]

Originally Posted by PepsiFree

I’m pretty sure Conroy, as an American who played in both Canada and the US, has said that the tax issue is overblown by media and fans, and the benefits of living in Canadian cities while making US dollars far-outweighs any tax issues.

Conroy is a Canadian GM. I dunno - players mention it a lot if it's a non-issue. And to answer IronMaiden, no. It's simpler to try and play in tax free states and get the money now than to pay a tax advisor a lot of money to defer tax for four years.

[Scroopy Noopers]

Tax free states? How many of these are there?

[TheIronMaiden]

Originally Posted by GioforPM

Conroy is a Canadian GM. I dunno - players mention it a lot if it's a non-issue. And to answer IronMaiden, no. It's simpler to try and play in tax free states and get the money now than to pay a tax advisor a lot of money to defer tax for four years.

Can you provide some explicate examples where a player outright talks about tax rates?

[Lanny_McDonald]

Originally Posted by Scroopy Noopers

Tax free states? How many of these are there?

Zero. You pay taxes in every single one of them. Where you get a break is on personal income tax contributions to the state, which are made up in other taxes and surcharges. There's no free lunch. You pay for it in some way.

[GioforPM]

Originally Posted by Scroopy Noopers

Tax free states? How many of these are there?

We are talking state income tax, which I assume you knew and are just being sarcastic.

No state income tax: Fla, Nev, Texas, Wash, Tenn. And some others are really low. AZ, OH, PA.

[TheIronMaiden]

This article does a deep dive into player taxation.

It is a pretty heavy duty read, but interesting.

https://hockey-graphs.com/2019/01/08...-part-2-taxes/

[TheIronMaiden]

Obviously, there's different ways of minimizing the tax implications of playing in Canada, of earning income in Canada. The Supreme Court of Canada rendered a decision recently, not at all in any respect with athletes or anything like that, but it reaffirmed the principle that we have in Canada, which is that a taxpayer is entitled to mitigate and arrange his or her affairs in a way that is going to be the most efficient from a tax perspective.

It's called the Duke of Westminster Principle, which comes from English Common Law, but it's a very old decision and principle, but it was reaffirmed. There are ways to mitigate. Obviously, one of the things that might be interesting is earning bonuses. There's been administrative positions as to what constitutes a bonus. And usually it's something that is an inducement to play and to perform services. For example, for a club in Canada.

Let's say, you have a $2 million salary, but you get a $1 million bonus. Well, obviously under the tax treaty, tax treaties do afford a reduced rate for bonuses. Instead of being 53 percent, it's going to be 15 percent, which is quite interesting.

Obviously, you have to think about it has to be a bonus and that's something to keep in mind. But it is something that is done and that's a way for clubs and players to negotiate. That might be a way of mitigating the implication.

Another really interesting and sometimes underused vehicle is the retirement compensation arrangements. It's really a Canadian construct. It's a pension plan in essence. It's not only used for athletes. It can be used also for high earners, nonresidents coming to work in Canada. But what it is, in essence, it's a trust that's created.

There's an agreement that's drafted between an employer and a player. You can allocate a portion of your salary into this retirement compensation arrangement, this trust that's created. And to do that, it has to be on a reasonable basis. So from that perspective, it is very important. You can't allocate the whole of your income into the retirement compensation arrangement trust, but getting an actuarial report is probably the best strategy to determine what is reasonable based on a player's salary.

But let's say you were earning $20 million a year and you can put $2 million — the employer contributes $2 million into this RCA — the Retirement Compensation Arrangement. Well, first of all, in the year you received that $20 million, well you're not being taxed. The $2 million is not being taxed in that year. There's a 50 percent refundable tax that's levied on that $2 million that is put in a separate trust account that is created with CRA. Any investment income that is earned on anything is also 50 percent put into that account.

That is kind of waiting there until there's either a retirement, a loss of employment, or substantial change to the employment. And then you can withdraw and you get that 50 percent refundable tax back. What's interesting about that, especially for any professional athletes that don't want to stay in Canada, for example, after retirement or loss of employment or that substantial change, is because instead of being 53 percent, there's a withholding tax of 25 percent. Sometimes that's even reduced depending on the treaty in the country you're in when you get those amounts.

Even if you decide to stay in Canada, depending where you're living, if it's not Ontario or Quebec, there's interesting strategies from that point of view. That's an interesting vehicle that can be used. You have to negotiate it obviously from the outset with the club and they have to agree and it has to be an employer contribution. It has to be that kind of structure, but that's something that's quite interesting also.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/taxnote...h=455640504157

[Scroopy Noopers]

Originally Posted by GioforPM

We are talking state income tax, which I assume you knew and are just being sarcastic.

No state income tax: Fla, Nev, Texas, Wash, Tenn. And some others are really low. AZ, OH, PA.

No, I don’t.

[ForeverFlameFan]

Originally Posted by shutout

https://theathletic.com/4736680/2023...ston-carolina/

Athletics thoughts on Lindholm trade destinations
Not very much thought put into it.
Some very unrealistic destinations.
Most of their ideas don't come with any thoughts on possible returns.
Lazy writing at its finest from the Athletic.

Boston Bruins -

Carolina Hurricanes - Drury / Jarvis / Necas

Columbus Blue Jackets - Rosovic

Minnesota Wild - Rossi

Toronto Maple Leafs -

Vancouver Canucks -

Just purely looking at teams that is an awful suggestion list.

Any one of us on CP could have come up with better.

[Jiggy]

Originally Posted by ForeverFlameFan

Just purely looking at teams that is an awful suggestion list.

Any one of us on CP could have come up with better.

And there are some awful proposals on CP, yet they make more sense than that article. 😂

[bax]

Originally Posted by shutout

https://theathletic.com/4736680/2023...ston-carolina/

Athletics thoughts on Lindholm trade destinations
Not very much thought put into it.
Some very unrealistic destinations.
Most of their ideas don't come with any thoughts on possible returns.
Lazy writing at its finest from the Athletic.

Boston Bruins -

Carolina Hurricanes - Drury / Jarvis / Necas

Columbus Blue Jackets - Rosovic

Minnesota Wild - Rossi

Toronto Maple Leafs -

Vancouver Canucks -

I gave McKenzie a fair shake when he moved out west last year, but I just find everything he writes is incredible dull and lacking any major insight or analysis.

I miss the days of Wilson and Hayes. I didn’t always agree with them, but at least they provided something of substance to read.

On the TV side at least we still have Leslie and Ball. I cringe every time Salim has something to say/write.