Jock Tax Case Aims to Clarify Pennsylvania’s Uniformity Mandate

A long-running dispute between professional players’ unions and Pittsburgh over a tax on visiting athletes gives the Pennsylvania Supreme Court an opportunity to more clearly define a state constitutional requirement that taxes be applied uniformly.

Pittsburgh will ask the high court at oral arguments Thursday to overturn a 6-1 state appeals court opinion striking down the city’s 3% facilities fee for violating that provision.

The fee, which detractors call a “jock tax,” singles out income nonresident athletes and entertainers earn at the National Hockey League Penguins’, National Football League Steelers’, and Major League Baseball Pirates’ stadiums.

The city says it needs the fee to equalize nonresidents’ tax burden with that of residents, who are subject to a 1% earned income tax and a 2% school district tax. State law expressly prohibits school districts from imposing taxes on nonresidents.

Most state constitutions require uniformity, but there’s little consensus on how to define that term, said Kathryn Kisska-Schulze, who teaches sports law at Clemson University.

“There’s really not a great black and white notion of what it means,” she said. The Pennsylvania justices “are going to have to be very clear on defining uniformity in this case,” she said.

Michael Jordan

Jock taxes have become ubiquitous since they first came into the spotlight in 1991 when California taxed Michael Jordan’s income after the Chicago Bulls beat the Los Angeles Lakers in the NBA finals that year.

Illinois retaliated with a tax on visiting players from any state that taxed their players, and many other states and municipalities followed suit.

Stephen Kidder of Hemenway & Barnes LLP, who has represented players in this and several other challenges to such fees, said the lawsuits only target taxes that single out athletes in an unfair way.

“As a matter of technical state law, the states have a very good case to argue that if you earn income within their jurisdiction, you’re liable for tax,” he acknowledged. Professional athletes are easy targets because their schedules are public and they make a lot of money, he said.

But Pittsburgh is clearly treating visiting athletes differently from residents by taxing their income at three times the rate, Kidder said.

Most taxing authorities have adopted a model jock tax regulation that Kidder finds acceptable.

“We’ve fought these battles really only when we think a jurisdiction goes way out of line with how it should be,” he said, calling Pittsburgh the last remaining outlier.

Uniform Allocation?

Pittsburgh and the sole dissenting appeals court judge said Pennsylvania’s constitution is satisfied as long as similarly situated taxpayers bear the same overall burden.

That argument “seems pretty facially absurd to me,” said Andrew Wilford, a senior policy analyst at the National Taxpayers Union Foundation.

“It’s like me saying that because I live in Virginia and pay property taxes in Virginia, Virginia should be able to charge a higher income tax rate to nonresidents because they’re not paying Virginia property taxes,” he said. “If you start bringing in other taxes assessed at other levels by other jurisdictions, then it’s impossible to ever have a uniformly assessed tax.”

The city, its attorneys, and the International Municipal Lawyers Association declined to comment ahead of arguments.

But the association argued in an amicus brief on the city’s behalf that the state constitution doesn’t require uniformity with regard to how a taxing authority allocates the tax revenue once it’s collected.

Pittsburgh could impose a 3% tax on residents, put all of those revenues into the general fund, and then transfer 2/3 of that revenue to the school district. “This would produce the same end result as the current tax scheme and would in no way implicate the uniformity clause,” the group said.

Jock Taxes’ Future

Wilford sees jock taxes as states taking advantage of people who can’t voice their displeasure at the ballot box.

He called the situation a “shell game” where states are just moving money around. Any state that taxes visiting athletes must credit its own residents for taxes they pay to other states, he said.

Meanwhile, players face the compliance burden of filing returns in every state where they played a game, he said. And that burden doesn’t just apply to highly paid athletes—minor league players and team staff as well feel the impact, he said.

But Kisska-Schulze said she doesn’t see jock taxes going away.

High-profile athletes and entertainers require extra security that everyday workers don’t, and cities bear the brunt of funding extra police, protection, and public transportation, she said.

“The stresses that it puts on a city are significant,” Kisska-Schulze said.

Frost Brown Todd LLP and the Pittsburgh Law Department represent the city. Raines, Feldman & Littrell LLP also represents the players and unions.

The case is Nat’l Hockey League Players’ Ass’n v. City of Pittsburgh, Pa., No. 20 WAP 2024, oral arguments scheduled 4/10/25.