Did You Know This About The Vikings Recent Trip Overseas?

The Minnesota Vikings have wrapped up a 10-day trip outside the United States where they played in Dublin Ireland and London England. Thankfully the Vikings were able to come from behind and win on Sunday over the Cleveland Browns.  

With the victory, the Vikings went 1-1 in those two games they played outside of America. The team did lose a couple of offensive linemen to injury in Dublin and picked up some normal dings and bruises that make this week’s bye week one that focuses on recovery. 

I wrote a few weeks ago about the expenses that the team picks up for playing internationally does come with some reimbursement or shared revenue from the league. The league also offers the players stipends to help cover their expenses on these business trips. 

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One area that some folks don’t ever think about is the fact that the players have to pay international taxes on what they earn while in another country. You may not realize that when a team plays in another state, the players have to pay taxes in each state they play in. Imagine what those tax returns look like, and you thought your returns were complicated. 

The IRS does cut the players a deal that allows them to get a tax credit for some of the monies taxed for games outside of the country. For the Vikings, who became the first NFL team to play consecutive weeks outside the country in different countries, their players had a portion of their salaries allocated to cover the international taxes that playing in those two countries required. 

The tax rate is based on the number of days they player is “working” in the country and then of course how much they make. The amount will fluctuate from player to player, but again the tax credit that is available for these players helps tremendously. 

Here’s something interesting I found while looking at this topic, there are situations where the players actually save money playing in another country versus in a state here in the United States.  

The website taxfoundation.org had an article from September that says the Kansas City Chiefs saved in some cases hundreds of thousands of dollars by playing in Brazil to begin the season rather than in California against the L.A. Chargers. 

The article says that the players still paid around $175,000 to Brazil but saved around $287,000 than if they had played in California. Vikings players are probably used to paying a lot in taxes, as a Google search reveals that Minnesota is one of the Top 6 states in the amount that professional athletes are taxed.  

The state's top marginal tax rate is said to be at 9.85%. That could impact the next big-time star who opts to go somewhere else instead of playing in Minnesota. That's not as high as a few others though, compare that to the 13.3% that California has, that obviously eats into players paychecks.  

So each week when you're watching your these teams play around the country, or sometimes outside our borders, remember that even with all the hundreds of thousands of dollars, or millions of dollars they're making, Uncle Sam and other countries are first in line with their hands out once the games are over.