I did get some tickets from a MLB player two seasons ago - and it was, who else, the IRS who decided that free tickets were a taxable item. So now the player gets charged rather than having the team have to track exactly how many "free" tickets each player got per pay period and then having to tax them on the value of those tickets.
Found this link - http://usatoday30.usatoday.com...0-ticket-taxes_x.htm
I can now report with complete confidence that this in fact true. Not that there was any doubt.
I guess one thing to note is that it can cause the player some amount of anxiety. Stuck between "Yes, I'm making a lot more money than I've ever made but not as much (take home) as one might imagine" and "How the heck can I say 'no' to the dozens of requests from good friends, aunts and uncles that come in daily sometimes."
The charge for our son's debut weekend back in June was hundreds of dollars for 3 seats (mom, dad and girlfriend) to 2 games in Atlanta earlier this year. Imagine being in a family with 30 aunts and uncles and dozens of cousins who live all over the country in various MLB cities. Thats the situation our son finds himself in and you can imagine its a tough one to navigate...that my wife and I are trying to help him...well, navigate.
Interesting and didn't know that. Lets worse case this thing. Lets assume a player has at least 6 ticket requests for all 162 games which is probably overstating things by a lot. That's about 1,000 tickets per year. Lets assume each one of those tickets is $40.00 which is probably also overstating things. That is a 40,000 dollar tax bill which the player probably would be on the hook to the IRS for about 20,000 of that amount to pay the tax. The major league minimum salary is 500k and lets assume the government gets 200,000 of that netting the player 300k. In this hypothetical scenario, that would be over 6 percent of the player's net income which of course is not chump change. For the Bryce Harper's of the world, it probably is no big deal. For first time big leaguers making the major league minimum, it is something to consider.
I'd say if it is at all possible, honor the ticket request as a way of giving back. A tough pill to swallow when it adds up, but I don't think people will understand if you start turning them down and I am not sure if it is worth the bad karma it might generate trying to explain things.