Hackney on NILs, Preachers, and Hook ’em Horns

When asked by a WSJ reporter yesterday whether exempt NILs will survive after Friday’s Chief Counsel Memorandum, Phil allowed that the government should most likely win in a challenge to an NIL’s exempt status.  I would have insisted on being quoted as saying “you’re damn skippy government wins, what are you stupid?!”  But before I could go off half cocked, Phil reminded the readers (and me) of some Texas wisdom:  “Preachers and Hook ‘Em Horns Always Win.”  Ain’t that the truth.  Preachers get tax free housing and College Bowl and March Madness advertising revenue is tax exempt largess.  “It just does not fit into the panoply that we call charitable organizations. It just doesn’t,” said Phil Hackney, a law professor at the University of Pittsburgh who was an IRS attorney. So I too remained professorial in the article, “It looks more like a private sports agency,” said Darryll Jones, a law professor at Florida A&M University. “This is not going to put the NIL industry out of business. It just means they’re going to have to pay taxes.”  And oh yeah, them big boosters are gonna lose charitable contribution deductions.  

darryll jones