The Raiders have seen a variety of front-office employees exit the team in recent weeks, headlined by team president Marc Badain. The moves have sparked plenty of speculation regarding the reasons for the departures, and some reporters have begun to get to the bottom of the situation.
Front Office Sports reported last week that the team had launched an internal investigation. This week, Front Office Sports reported that the departures arose from “significant financial irregularities that allegedly stretched back more than a decade.”
Mike Ozanian of Forbes has reported that the Raiders “are facing very big tax implications from money not reported as income” during their time in Oakland, and that this is the reason for some of the various resignations.
Jason Cole contends that the issue arises from “approximately $200 million in income/loan accrual from a 1995 loan that Oakland/Alameda County made to the Raiders that was never repaid because it was supposedly non-recoverable.” Cole says that the Raiders ultimately could owe state and federal taxes on the amount.
The moment a loan becomes forgiven it typically becomes income. So if the Raiders didn’t pay taxes when the loan was forgiven (per Cole, that apparently happened in 2013) and the forgiven loan counts as income, the Raiders owed taxes from the moment of forgiveness.
The size of the check(s) that Raiders owner Mark Davis has to write currently isn’t known. It’s safe to guess that it won’t be a small amount. Indeed, it’s apparently big enough to result in multiple employees exiting stage left.
