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NFL sets potentially bad precedent by caving on tax-exempt status

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On Tuesday, the NFL finally cried, “Uncle!” regarding the outside scrutiny over its relationship with Uncle Sam.  Moving forward, the question now becomes whether the NFL will yield to outside scrutiny on other topics.

The biggest big-picture takeaway from the NFL’s decision after six-plus years of periodic complaints and barbs about its “tax-exempt” status is that the NFL hears external criticism, and in this specific case responds to it.  That reality possibly will encourage the foes of the NFL to find something else to repeatedly criticize.

“The owners have decided to eliminate the distraction associated with misunderstanding of the league’s office status, so the league will in the future file returns as a taxable entity,” Texans owner Bob McNair wrote, via Daniel Kaplan of SportsBusiness Journal.