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The sponsor of a Georgia Senate bill that would exempt college athletes from state income tax for compensation they make through NIL deals said he’s “basically calling it the Kirby Smart bill.”
Brandon Beach, a Republican who represents Senate District 21 that includes north Fulton County and Cherokee County, said Georgia football and other state programs are at a recruiting disadvantage because players have to pay a 5.39% income tax on deals for their name, image and likeness.
Georgia Senate Bill 71 was put in the finance committee Tuesday, Beach said, as it works its way through the legislative process.
“Listen, recruiting is a very, very competitive sport,” Beach told the Athens Banner-Herald on Tuesday. “When you’re recruiting these five-star athletes, they all have agents and we’re competing with Tennessee, Texas and Florida who have no state income tax. Eventually, we’ll get there and we won’t have a state income tax. I hope that happens, but until then we’ve got to get Kirby and these football coaches and basketball coaches, these coaches a tool in their toolbox to be able to compete.”
Beach said he’s actually not talked to Smart, the two-time national championship winning UGA football coach, about the bill, but said the idea came after a dinner he had with Alabama coach Nick Saban and others at a home on Lake Burton, where Saban has a lake house.
He said Saban told him Missouri passed an NIL law after losing recruits to schools like Texas and Texas A&M that didn’t pay state income tax.
Missouri’s NIL bill, approved in 2023, allows in-state athletes to make money from endorsement deals in high school if they sign with public universities in that state.
He mentioned that Texas and Tennessee made the College Football Playoff this year and those schools don’t have state income taxes.
Source link : https://www.yahoo.com/news/kirby-smart-bill-aims-help-001238888.html
Author : Athens Banner-Herald
Publish date : 2025-02-05 00:12:00
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