For eight of his first nine major league seasons, Angels pitcher Darren Oliver worked in Texas, where the stars at night are big and bright and, more important, there's no state income tax.
Yet, each April, he pays a small army of accountants to file more than a hundred pages of returns -- and sometimes checks -- to as many as a dozen states and one province in Canada, covering taxes on income he earned on the road.
"The book's like this big," Oliver, holding his thumb and index finger a couple of inches apart, says of the tax documents he filed this year.
If opening day is the best day of the year for professional athletes, then April 15 -- tax day -- is probably the worst. Especially now that 20 of the 24 states with franchises in at least one of the four major pro leagues -- the NFL, NBA, NHL and Major League Baseball -- have laws that require visiting athletes to pay state income tax for each game they play there.
Considering that top-level athletes in football, basketball, hockey and baseball now make an annual average salary of $2.9 million, that means big bucks for states such as California. Home to 15 major professional teams, the state raked in $102 million in taxes from visiting athletes in 2006-07, the last year for which records are available.
As salaries have skyrocketed, the so-called "jock tax" has become widespread and controversial. Its imposition has raised questions of fairness and, for tax expert Joseph Henchman, has laid waste to the once-revolutionary prohibition on taxation without representation.
"Politicians are seeking to shift tax burdens to people that don't vote," he says. "It does create a rather disturbing trend because it essentially allows politicians to provide more government services than [citizens] are willing to pay for."
Oliver, who still resides in Texas during the off-season, is one of few pro athletes willing to speak publicly about the subject, with most who decline saying they're wary of making their lucrative contracts sound like a burden.
"Nothing surprises me that the government does to try to get some money," says Oliver, who will make $3.665 million this summer. " . . . The common person, they're not going to feel sorry for us. And if I was that person, I would be saying the exact thing. I can see both sides of it."
