Richard Burr Wants to Tax College Athletes’ Scholarships

WASHINGTON, D.C. – The government just has to take its cut of absolutely everything, doesn’t it? Whether or not college athletes should claim some of the $1 billion+ the NCAA makes from the young men and women’s sports prowess is one of the biggest debates in college sports. Whichever side of that debate you fall on, Senator Richard Burr added yet another wrinkle Tuesday when he announced plans to introduce legislation to tax the scholarships of athletes that choose to accept shares of NCAA revenue.

If college athletes are going to make money off their likenesses while in school, their scholarships should be treated like income. I’ll be introducing legislation that subjects scholarships given to athletes who choose to “cash in” to income taxes. https://t.co/H7jXC0dNls

— Richard Burr (@SenatorBurr) October 29, 2019

See, when it comes to revenue sharing agreements the federal government is light years ahead of the NCAA. The first inclination of most politicians seems to always be asking you to ‘share’ more of your revenue, another slice of your transaction with Uncle Sam.

Here Burr is in his last term introducing bills to apply more taxes to people when he could be using his Capitol capital to, who knows, cut taxes or regulations?

What do you think? Is Burr’s bill appropriate? Or has he just aggravated an already prickly issue?