Do professional Golfers pay taxes in the State they win a tournament or...

Along those lines - read an article that said CA instituted a tax (early 90s) to tax pro athletes for games played in CA. Think it started with Jordan when they beat the Lakers. Essentially, they are taxed 1/82 of there pay for a game played there. Applies to all leagues I think. Not sure how playoff stuff happens. Article said basically every state now has this.

Accountants must love billing for that - realize Jordan easily affords it, but minimum salary guys paying taxes in 15 (whatever the number is) states?

Not just the players. We have a client who is a coach for a professional sports franchise and he has the same issue.

And it's a pain in the rear. In most cases, withholding is required, so the only person getting rich off the deal is the payroll company. We have to file a return where there is generally very little owed or refunded, and it just pisses off the client.

And because CPAs tend to eat their own, enough of them will do the state returns "for free" so that it prevents us for charging much for them. So we just use it as training for staff.

I remember seeing a deadspin post a few years back that was a screen shot of some baseball player's paycheck. With all the taxes withdrawn for each city/state he played in, guy only took home about $2 million every two weeks.

I always thought the rule was if you perform work in that state then you technically have to pay taxes on income earned while working in that state. Like if my job is in Louisiana, but they send me to Mississippi for a week or two, then I technically have to file a mississippi state tax return.

But the answers about this Jock tax make me think it's something just for pro athletes. Can anyone explain the rules in the scenario I gave?

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I always thought the rule was if you perform work in that state then you technically have to pay taxes on income earned while working in that state. Like if my job is in Louisiana, but they send me to Mississippi for a week or two, then I technically have to file a mississippi state tax return.

But the answers about this Jock tax make me think it's something just for pro athletes. Can anyone explain the rules in the scenario I gave?

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It depends on the state because they have different tax laws, but yes you could possibly owe tax in Mississippi. A lot of states, though allow you to deduct taxes paid in another state. The case with professional athletes though, is most of these are city taxes. Most cities that have these franchises have created municipal taxes that are really aggressive on the way they calculate tax owed. This was just litigated in Ohio State Supreme Court. Look up Jeff Saturday v Ohio Supreme Court if you're interested, there's a lot of info on it.

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Buddy works as district salesman in 4 states - Miss/Ala/Fla/Georgia.

Rents Apt. in Hattiesburg and only pays Mississippi tax.

Is he doing it wrong?

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I'm not familiar with the specific laws of all of these states. Obviously will owe nothing in Florida since there's no state income tax. I would at least consult a CPA if I were him.

If you are a resident Louisiana taxes all income no matter where it's earned, but will credit taxes paid to other states. I'm assuming your buddy isn't a resident, though. They'll tax the income he makes here, but at most but companies will give you a W-2 from each state that apples so if he needs to file a return here his company will give him a W-2 that says so.

I don't work in LA so I'm not 100% sure, but LSUHouston would probably be able to tell you with certainty.