Super Bowl Winning Quarterback Sam Darnold LOST Money After Playing In The Super Bowl Due To California’s Insane Tax Laws

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Most of the time, playing in the Super Bowl will make you money, but that wasn’t the case for some NFL stars playing in the big game on Sunday.

Due to California’s heavy tax laws that target athletes, Super Bowl-winning quarterback Sam Darnold reportedly lost over $70,000 just for playing in the Super Bowl.

Darnold’s income loss is due to California’s aggressive “Jock Tax.”

New York Post reported more on the California “Jock Tax” laws that hurt the Super Bowl champion quarterback:

Sam Darnold’s big Super Bowl win Sunday night actually ended up costing the quarterback money.

Because of California tax laws, the Seahawks star reportedly will owe more than the $178,000 he earned for helping lift Seattle to a 29–13 victory over the Patriots at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, Calif.

According to Sportico, Darnold’s bill to the Golden State will be $249,000 following Seattle’s latest championship.

The outlet stated the sizable check is due to California’s “jock taxes,” which force pro athletes who don’t live in the state to fork over percentages of their yearly income based on the number of days they work in California.

The days have been dubbed “duty days,” and after the Seahawks touched down in NorCal on Feb. 1, Darnold and the rest of his team accumulated eight days total by playing in Santa Clara on Sunday night.

That, Sportico reported, is why Darnold — who’s in the middle of a three-year, $105 million contract with the Seahawks — will ultimately lose some $71,000 for lifting his first-ever Lombardi Trophy.

Based on the way Darnold celebrated Sunday, though, seems it’s a tab he won’t mind picking up.

CBS Sports Network broke it down:

Fox 11 explained more details on the jock tax:

The total earnings are multiplied by a ratio of duty days spent in a given jurisdiction out of the athlete’s total duty days to determine the jock tax liability.

“The days on duty include days when you’re practicing or, in the case of the Super Bowl, even the media day counts as a day on duty and if that activity is happening in California, you’re subject to those tax rules,” Degner said.

“The players have a really complex tax situation where they can have 10 or more different states that they’re having to file taxes for,” he said. “This is why a lot of these young players, it’s really important for teams to settle them in with sharp financial advisors and tax advisors so that they don’t lose their shirts, so to speak.”

Next time you hear an athlete has back taxes to pay, you may want to cut them some slack because paying taxes for just playing one game in a state is quite complicated to keep up with.



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