2013/14 Luxury Tax Payers, as it stands at 11.52am GMT on 13th January 2014

January 13th, 2014

(click here for the Instant Gratification Version) Determining a team’s luxury tax number is not quite as simple as looking at their payroll and comparing it to the luxury tax threshold. This is about 98% of the job, of course, but there are a couple of other tweaks. For salary minutia fans like myself, these tweaks are important. The following list of adjustments is quoted from Larry Coon’s CBA FAQ, a page from which my entire career is sourced. 1) Cap holds and exceptions are ignored. 2) Any “unlikely bonuses” that were actually earned are added to the team salary. 3) Any “likely bonuses” that were not earned are subtracted from the team salary. 4) Any trade bonuses for players received in trade after the last regular season game are added to the team salary. 5) Any amounts from settlements of grievances are added to the team salary. 6) Players who signed as free agents (i.e., not draft picks) and make less than the two-year minimum salary are taxed at the minimum salary for a two-year veteran and not their actual salary. For minimum salary players whose salary is partially paid by the league only the amount paid by the team (the two-year minimum salary) is taxed. The salaries of players waived via the Amnesty provision are exempt from the luxury tax. A team’s luxury tax number is taken from the last day of the regular season, then adjusted for the above criteria. We of course aren’t at the last day of the regular season yet, hence the title of this post, so points 2, 3 and 4 can be ignored for now. (Bonuses are adjusted with hindsight. For now, we can only work with what we know.) Point number 1 means removing the cap holds and unused exceptions that […]