Northwestern University Football Players Can Unionize

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The NLRB ruled that Northwestern University scholarship football players are employees of the school and are eligible to form the nation's first college athletes' union.

SEE STORY HERE

There are a lot of potential implications to this. Will Northwestern now have to declare the value of the scholarships and gross up the value of the scholarships for tax withholdings? I also can't recall a situation in which an "employee" was paid but did not have income taxes withheld. Plus the value of the "compensation" might also make students ineligible to be claimed as dependents on their parents' tax returns. And what happens to them academically should they decide to go out on strike?

I can't speak to the US situation, but my scholarships were always taxable income.

As long as the athlete is also actively pursuing a degree (though they don't have to finish) tuition, fees, books, and supplies are all tax-free. But if they are now considered employees of the school, I don’t see how that could continue.

I think the real issue is, what about the 1000+ other colleges or university that have a football team. Do OSHA rules apply? And if it applies to football, what about basketball? And if it applies to football and basketball, what about all other sports?

I happen to work in Evanston, Illinois.

That is the question, where does it go from here? Currently only the Northwestern football players on scholarship will be represented.
But it could become a ‘pay for play’ situation where schools say, “O.K., we’ll give you some money, you can come play for us, but as far as your education, well, you’re on your own." And it could come to involve all sports, including those that aren't so popular and don't generate as much income as football does.

Those are expenses, not income. You don't pay tax on your expenses (other than value added taxes, of course), and there is absolutely no reason why those expenses cannot continue to be deductions/tax credits against the income realized from scholarships.

Of the ten years that I spent in undergraduate and professional education, I had scholarships for 9, and every year I had to declare those scholarships as income, and against my tax owing I could claim credits from my tuition and other education expenses. If a graduate student can write off these amounts against employment earnings from a research or teaching associateship, why would the situation be any different for a student athlete?

It will change because the school will no longer need to keep up the pretense of these athletes being students. They will merely be paid athletes helping to create income for a university. I daresay most of them will end up flipping burgers at McDonalds when their eligibility ends and they either aren't drafted or retained by the NFL.

Well, the NCAA might have something to say about that.

Football, basketball, and any ther sports are extracurricular activities. Secondly, many students on the team are most likely there because the school that they play for gives them a free education via scholarships that were granted to promote their school athletic programs. --Now not only do they get a free education, but they want to get paid for it as well?

I guess tuition for the other students will be going up noext year.