Pittsburgh’s Jock Tax Voided by Pennsylvania Appeals Court (1)

The National Hockey League, Major League Baseball, and National Football League players’ unions convinced a Pennsylvania appeals court Wednesday that a trial court properly struck down Pittsburgh’s tax on visiting athletes as unconstitutional.

“The City has failed to provide the requisite concrete justification for treating residents and nonresidents as distinguishable classes that may be subjected to different tax burdens,” Judge Ellen Ceisler wrote for the 6-1 Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court.

The trial court ruled in 2022 that the city’s facilities fee—which detractors call a “jock tax"—violates the state constitution’s uniformity clause because it isn’t equally applied to all professional athletes who ...