What the hell is that doing in this? I love my racetracks but not at the detriment of our citizens! I know-this could get contentious (and I'm not trying to go there), but I believe this would get a bi-partisan thumbs-down if congress had enough time to read the 5500+ page bill! Am I missing something here?
Legislation is like a turd: you've got to pass it to find out what's in it.
In reply to 2GRX7 :
This is more than a tad "danger to patio"...
My understanding as a bit of a politics geek is that it's not that uncommon to attach (or rather, hide) controversial legislation to must pass bills if they have a hard time passing otherwise.
From what I'm reading in the tech press, there's a whole bunch of ugly in this bill. Almost like people were taking advantage of the "pass this bill or the government gets it (or rather doesn't get funded)".
BoxheadTim (Forum Supporter) said:In reply to 2GRX7 :
............ , there's a whole bunch of ugly in there.
This holds true for EVERY piece of legislation passed in the last 100 years. Sigh.
Also, in before the lock.
Why are racetracks less deserving of breaks than any other non-essential public entertainment venues that have lost large portions of their ability to generate income and stay in business? How much of a break are movie theaters getting? How much of a break are sports arenas getting? The number may look big, but it's actually quite difficult to judge the legitimacy of it without knowing the math (or even reasoning) behind it.
Problem is thinking of this as a stimulus bill with everything tacked on.
What it is is the typical govt spending bill with a stimulus tacked on.
Line item veto.
And out before this goes sideways.
In reply to Toyman01 (Moderately Supportive Dude) :
We need a tax break for people who go sideways on racetracks. 
In reply to Snowdoggie (Forum Supporter) :
Laterally accelerated depreciation.
Driven5 said:Why are racetracks less deserving of breaks than any other non-essential public entertainment venues that have lost large portions of their ability to generate income and stay in business? How much of a break are movie theaters getting? How much of a break are sports arenas getting? The number may look big, but it's actually quite difficult to judge the legitimacy of it without knowing the math (or even reasoning) behind it.
This needs to be repeated. The entire entertainment industry is suffering, lots of people are not working- why should the racing part of that industry be cut out of support??? I don't understand the hate. These are people that you rely on for fun- track owners, organizers, etc- if they go down because- what will you do in the future?
Real people with real jobs- just because it's racing doesn't mean they are less real.
There was an omnibus budget bill ($1.4 trillion) passed at the same time as the Covid aid bill ($900 billion) and there's all sorts of accusations being made by people who haven't bothered to separate the items. There are multiple stories today about foreign aid in the Covid bill, for example, and it was all in the omnibus budget bill. People need to take a pill and calm down a little.
Road courses, dragstrips or circle tracks?
I need to know whether to purchase miata or mustang futures.
PPP and EIDL loans weren't designed for things like racetracks that in some cases lost 85-95% of their revenue. They didn't do enough for restaurants or bars either. They were made (very quickly I might add) for garden-variety businesses like stores, doctor's offices, salons/barber shops, car dealerships etc. that were shut down for 1-4 months due to quarantine. Some tracks take in almost all their revenue in only one weekend and if nobody's allowed in that weekend there goes all the money. Plus a lot of times staffing costs at places like road courses are pretty much nothing compared to other costs since it's a lot of volunteers or people working for track time. PPP calculations were based on payroll only. EIDL was capped at $10,000 per business.
Also, NASCAR has a lot more political capital than people think. And with F1 owned by an American broadcasting firm now that gets political here too.
In reply to alfadriver (Forum Supporter) :
There's no hate- every employee-including the racetrack owner, would receive Covid-relief funds to their checking accounts/mail, so why the disproportionate amount that's manifested in 5 years of tax breaks?
Agreed- the racing industry is no different than any other entertainment business and therefore, given the same access to PPP loan benefits as, say, restaurants when they keep their employees employed during the Pandemic, but tax breaks for the next five years? Covid could be contained before the end of 21' and we'll not only be paying entry fee to these locales, we'll be paying their taxes too.
This is under the Covid-relief package and not Omnibus.
Toyman01 (Moderately Supportive Dude) said:Line item veto.
That would give far too much power to the executive branch.
I mean, I like the idea of a line item veto in theory, until you think of all the ways it can be abused.
The Founding Fathers made it the way it is for a damned good reason.
In reply to 2GRX7 :
So, your main concern is that the tax break lasts too long? Do you think spectator sports will be back to 100% attendance by 2022, even if COVID is contained? Even if back to full revenue, they still need to make up for the lost revenue from being forced to shutdown for a long time. And $2.5B over 5 yrs is only $500M per year. And if it is a tax break, that just means that the gov is taking a little less money from the tracks, not that they are giving them money, so I don't understand why you are so upset that race tracks will have lower operating costs over the next 5 years.
90BuickCentury said:In reply to 2GRX7 :
So, your main concern is that the tax break lasts too long? Do you think spectator sports will be back to 100% attendance by 2022, even if COVID is contained? Even if back to full revenue, they still need to make up for the lost revenue from being forced to shutdown for a long time. And $2.5B over 5 yrs is only $500M per year. And if it is a tax break, that just means that the gov is taking a little less money from the tracks, not that they are giving them money, so I don't understand why you are so upset that race tracks will have lower operating costs over the next 5 years.
Yes- thank you for saving me some typing.
captdownshift (Forum Supporter) said:Road courses, dragstrips or circle tracks?
I need to know whether to purchase miata or mustang futures.
Circle tracks are where cars go sideways.
People need to take a pill and calm down a little.
It's the internet. Not going to happen.
In reply to 90BuickCentury :
LOL: so upset? Not really, but a bit upset for others not as fortunate as me. Had it been a part of Omnibus, ok-it's all good, but it's part of the Covid relief bill. Payouts to citizens are reduced by that $2.5B amount because WE have to cover that relief. While my situation during this pandemic is secure, millions are not, and $600 bux ain't doing squat for most.
While it would be great to think the Buttonwillows, or the Nelson Ledges' of the country would get the most help, it'll be the Speedway Motorsports, ISC, and Dover Motorsports of the country, which still saw 30% capacity NASCAR races (in a few cases) in 2020 and at least $250M in revenue (Speedway M). I don't want my tax dollars boosting their annual revenue keep-they made $250M IN 2020! N.Carolina corporate tax rate (Speedway HQ) =23.4% =$5.8M in tax relief (forgiven).
We haven't even touched on the television revenue split!!!
Do I see them at 100% capacity in 22'? No, but I do see at least 80% of 2019 attendance by then (that's if NASCAR folks still gravitate towards it as popularity's declining).
And NO-they're not directly giving them money, but it's not a cash in - cash out (to employees like the forgiveness loans) proposition, it's a cash in-cash in stinker (don't forget about that t.v. revenue split).
It's not the little guy, mom-and-pop track that lobbied for this, so who do you think will be pushed out? I would think you guys would be kinda upset too. As people do, they'll lump ALL motorsports into the "greedy" category. There's already the environmental questioning going on. We don't need this.
As has been said, the "covid bill" is a budget bill masquerading as a humanitarian act. Why else does Title 4 of Division FF cover tax breaks for horseracing? Regardless of which way you lean I think that most here can agree that omnibus bills are a pretty crappy way of legislating if you're not one of the special interest groups getting your way thanks to that scholarship you sent over to some politicians kiddo or whatever. I was reading that the bill to establish a permanent income tax was 38 pages long. Meanwhile, our "barely surviving covid" bill is 56 pounds (5,593 pages, 5,585 pages longer than income tax bill) of paper that will never be read. Makes you wonder what they were really debating for the last however many months and just how many kickbacks got handed out..
I realize this is an oversimplification but $600 x 330,000,000... is a long way from $900 billion.
This relief Bill is pork city just like everything that comes out of those rooms. So apparently race tracks have lobbyists.
2GRX7 said:In reply to 90BuickCentury :
LOL: so upset? Not really, but a bit upset for others not as fortunate as me. Had it been a part of Omnibus, ok-it's all good, but it's part of the Covid relief bill. Payouts to citizens are reduced by that $2.5B amount because WE have to cover that relief. While my situation during this pandemic is secure, millions are not, and $600 bux ain't doing squat for most.
While it would be great to think the Buttonwillows, or the Nelson Ledges' of the country would get the most help, it'll be the Speedway Motorsports, ISC, and Dover Motorsports of the country, which still saw 30% capacity NASCAR races (in a few cases) in 2020 and at least $250M in revenue (Speedway M). I don't want my tax dollars boosting their annual revenue keep-they made $250M IN 2020! N.Carolina corporate tax rate (Speedway HQ) =23.4% =$5.8M in tax relief (forgiven).
We haven't even touched on the television revenue split!!!
Do I see them at 100% capacity in 22'? No, but I do see at least 80% of 2019 attendance by then (that's if NASCAR folks still gravitate towards it as popularity's declining).
And NO-they're not directly giving them money, but it's not a cash in - cash out (to employees like the forgiveness loans) proposition, it's a cash in-cash in stinker (don't forget about that t.v. revenue split).
It's not the little guy, mom-and-pop track that lobbied for this, so who do you think will be pushed out? I would think you guys would be kinda upset too. As people do, they'll lump ALL motorsports into the "greedy" category. There's already the environmental questioning going on. We don't need this.
ISC got wrapped into NASCAR in 2019. It is no longer a publicly traded company. Just in time too, considering what would have happend to the share price this year.
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