Before you jump off a bridge. Please read.

[DeLuca1967]

This whole Ralph thing is nothing more then Ralph looking to get a waiver on the 'Death Tax'. If he dies then the family would have to pay a ton of money just to collect his. They would have to sell the team just to flip the bill.

 

If Ralph starts playing the "financial future" card then he can set things in motion to get a waiver which will allow his family to sell the team and get market value.

 

So, if you want the Bills to stay? Get on the horn or use your e-mail and start letting your Reps know how important the team is to the region.

[Pyrite Gal]

This whole Ralph thing is nothing more then Ralph looking to get a waiver on the 'Death Tax'. If he dies then the family would have to pay a ton of money just to collect his. They would have to sell the team just to flip the bill.

 

If Ralph starts playing the "financial future" card then he can set things in motion to get a waiver which will allow his family to sell the team and get market value.

 

So, if you want the Bills to stay? Get on the horn or use your e-mail and start letting your Reps know how important the team is to the region. 

653596[/snapback]

 

You might want to go check your law books again. One would have to quite the fool as best as I can tell (layman's legal knowledge backed by dealing professionally with a bunch of nont-fot profit organizations who use estate planning as a major income development tool buttressed with a bit of osmotic trust and estates knowledge from having a father-in-law who is a major league trust and estates lawyer) to not be able to park a huge chunk of assets and protect them from Uncle Sam.

 

The GOP certainly loves using what they call "the death tax" as a great political tool. However, the law has changed a lot over the last decade so that a smart lawyer can make great use of tools like irrevocab;e trusts, corporate ownership, off-setting gifts and losses to insulate a lot of financial holdings from taxes.

 

Perhaps Ralph is so filthy rich that there is not way for him to avoid some substantial hit (though if he falls in the league of the Warren Buffets and other amazingly wealthy folks they tend to be in favor of heft estate taxes as they seem to feel that leaving such massive wealth to future generations with them having done nothing but be born to earn them really blunts personal inititative). However, even personal wealth is so large, it also creates an ability to hire smart lawyers who can move the assets around to shield the most vulnerable holdings from attack by the government.

 

I Ralph really wanted to be cool, he could commit the Bills as a corporation to any number of fiscal commitments such as long-term leases of stadium leases wioth such substantial penalties for leaving that it would lock a team in court for years trying to escape town or give substantial, partnership, or majority control of moving decisions to local government and local interest that cannot or will not leave.

 

Instead, as best I can tell, Ralph has the right as an American to do whatever he wants or chooses not to do with his assets and no one can tell him otherwise. Ralphie does seem to have a heartfelt desire to keep the Bills here while he is a live, but he also seems to have a standard American inidvidualistic sense of driving to maximize the financial worth of his assets (as is his right as an American) and as such he either will not tip his hand as having taken such actions which will diminish the book worth of this asset while he is still alive like announcing he has taken action which encumbers its movement.

[JAMIEBUF12]

why does ralphie have to have hidden agendas?????????? maybe he realizes that since the new cba just raised the cap a bunch teams like washington who were already spending 100 million now will be able to spend 130 million and ralph knows there is no way he can compete with that......sounds like he is just being realistic.

[Pyrite Gal]

why does ralphie have to have hidden agendas??????????  maybe he realizes that since the new cba just raised the cap a bunch teams like washington who were already spending 100 million now will be able to spend 130 million and ralph knows there is no way he can compete with that......sounds like he is just being realistic.

653730[/snapback]

 

I see no economic reason why Ralph and the Bills should not be able to compete with the richer teams if ge chooses to do what's necessary to equalize things.

 

The Bills and he are certainly at a disadvantage in terms of cash to the richer teams (if this is a surprise to him then welcome to the real world where us normal folk are always at a significiant disadvantage to riich for items where money is helpful to have).

 

However, the fact remains that the NFL operates with an almost classicly communistic more level playing field of the salary cap which essentially provides most teams with the same budget.

 

Its true that the owner generated salary cap has a variety of rules which provides an advantage to the richer teams which has come to be known as the amount of cash over the cap which richer teams spend annually.

 

However:

 

1. The cash over cap aspect is available equally to all teams it is merely the richer teams which choose to take advantage of it consistently.

 

2. The salary cap essentially does provide a level playing field and the amount of cash over cap spending provides merely a marginal (I haven't calculated the exact number but in the worst case (the Skins) I would be shocked if their cash over cap spending exceeds more than 10% of the cap total in their worst years. Yeams routinely dod not max out their cap expenditures each year magnifying this difference.

 

3. The NFL has provided some fiscal handouts to the Bills and small market team which goes toward balancing this cash over cap issue. The Bills can either pocket this handout or actually can spend it or improve their cashflow if they feel less competitive.

 

4. Even without the greater income which larger market teams can access to allow them to spend cash over cap its not like the Bills or Ralph are incapable of getting their hands on cash. The Bills might need to use their cash cow of a team to take out loans from banks to get immediate cash to allow their cash flow to spend cash over the cap today. While this sacrifice would cut log term proftis, they have an obvious ability to get the best economic rates for loans they want in order to generate immediate cash.

 

5. Even though such fiscal maneuvers would reduce the Bills profits from outlandish benefits to more normal income levels, it actually is doubtful they need to perform this "sacrifice" to be competitive. Judging by the record of the Deadskins over the past decade, it is unclear to what degree having the heightened revenues of this large market team makes in terms of winning on the field.

 

In addition, the Bills record of failing to make the playoffs the last 5 years does not seem to be the fault of this team being too poor and unable to attract FAs such as TKO, NFLPA Pres Troy Vincent or even get Larry Triplett to visit and decide he need look no further.

 

This whole small market vs. large market issue seems to be a total red herring in terms of the competitiveness of this team and it an RWS whinining about the new CBA which like the old CBA promises to bring the NFL a labor peace which is the basis of the NFL raking in unprecedented dollars sound mostly like an excise by the Bills to stick up MYS taxpayers for a stadium and other corporate welfare for the team.

 

As a Bills fan and a WNY I totally support Ralph in extorting these bucks from NYS taxpayers as football fans and WNY should gain the benefits of the Bills stealing this money, I just wish he would stick 'em up and not whine so much about it.

[DeLuca1967]

You might want to go check your law books again.  One would have to quite the fool as best as I can tell (layman's legal knowledge backed by dealing professionally with a bunch of nont-fot profit organizations who use estate planning as a major income development tool buttressed with a bit of osmotic trust and estates knowledge from having a father-in-law who is a major league trust and estates lawyer) to not be able to park a huge chunk of assets and protect them from Uncle Sam.

 

The GOP certainly loves using what they call "the death tax" as a great political tool.  However, the law has changed a lot over the last decade so that a smart lawyer can make great use of tools like irrevocab;e trusts, corporate ownership, off-setting gifts and losses to insulate a lot of financial holdings from taxes.

 

Perhaps Ralph is so filthy rich that there is not way for him to avoid some substantial hit (though if he falls in the league of the Warren Buffets and other amazingly wealthy folks they tend to be in favor of heft estate taxes as they seem to feel that leaving such massive wealth to future generations with them having done nothing but be born to earn them really blunts personal inititative).  However, even personal wealth is so large, it also creates an ability to hire smart lawyers who can move the assets around to shield the most vulnerable holdings from attack by the government.

 

I Ralph really wanted to be cool, he could commit the Bills as a corporation to any number of fiscal commitments such as long-term leases of stadium leases wioth such substantial penalties for leaving that it would lock a team in court for years trying to escape town or give substantial, partnership, or majority control of moving decisions to local government and local interest that cannot or will not leave.

 

Instead, as best I can tell, Ralph has the right as an American to do whatever he wants or chooses not to do with his assets and no one can tell him otherwise.  Ralphie does seem to have a heartfelt desire to keep the Bills here while he is a live, but he also seems to have a standard American inidvidualistic sense of driving to maximize the financial worth of his assets (as is his right as an American) and as such he either will not tip his hand as having taken such actions which will diminish the book worth of this asset while he is still alive like announcing he has taken action which encumbers its movement.

653728[/snapback]

 

I'm not sure you can hide an assest as large as an NFL team. A team valued at what $500 million at least? Even just 20% of that is $100 million cash the family would need to pay the tax.

 

If Ralph can strike a deal with law makers he can have a big chunk of the Tax waived in the best interest of the community.

 

Even if the Wilson kids wanted to run the team they couldn't afford the initial cost of the inheritence.

[obie_wan]

You might want to go check your law books again.  One would have to quite the fool as best as I can tell (layman's legal knowledge backed by dealing professionally with a bunch of nont-fot profit organizations who use estate planning as a major income development tool buttressed with a bit of osmotic trust and estates knowledge from having a father-in-law who is a major league trust and estates lawyer) to not be able to park a huge chunk of assets and protect them from Uncle Sam.

 

653728[/snapback]

 

 

yeah - Alph should be using that annual gift tax excluison that lets him mmove $11,000 per year tax free.

 

In now time, he will have sheltered the $700 million value of the team.

[Sisyphean Bills]

You might want to go check your law books again.  One would have to quite the fool as best as I can tell (layman's legal knowledge backed by dealing professionally with a bunch of nont-fot profit organizations who use estate planning as a major income development tool buttressed with a bit of osmotic trust and estates knowledge from having a father-in-law who is a major league trust and estates lawyer) to not be able to park a huge chunk of assets and protect them from Uncle Sam.

653728[/snapback]

 

Well, yeah, but Ralph is a dip and keeps everything in his own name, right? I mean he drives a Taurus!

[Marv's Neighbor]

Death tax aside, I don't think the "heirs" give 2 shi*s about the BILLS in Buffalo. Even if they got some kind of phony expemtion, all that would do is put more money in their pockets and the fans would still have to live with the uncertainty.

[Fan in San Diego]

This whole Ralph thing is nothing more then Ralph looking to get a waiver on the 'Death Tax'. If he dies then the family would have to pay a ton of money just to collect his. They would have to sell the team just to flip the bill.

 

If Ralph starts playing the "financial future" card then he can set things in motion to get a waiver which will allow his family to sell the team and get market value.

 

So, if you want the Bills to stay? Get on the horn or use your e-mail and start letting your Reps know how important the team is to the region. 

653596[/snapback]

 

A private life annuity can be utilized to avoid the taxes already. Sheesh, cant Ralph afford some good financial advice ?

[apuszczalowski]

Why doesn't he just take his money and keep it in a shoe box in the closet, or a cookie jar, or a mattress like every other senior citizen does. Banks are for the youngsters. They can't tax cash that is hidden somewhere in your house that your family "finds" while cleaning it up.

 

Now thats some real financial advise for Ralph

[obie_wan]

A private life annuity can be utilized to avoid the taxes already. Sheesh, cant Ralph afford some good financial advice ?

654068[/snapback]

 

 

good plan-

 

sell the team to raise the cash to buy the annuity and pay the capital gains tax early.