How Uncle Sam Scores On Sam Bradford
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) - NFL players make a lot of money -- though they're paid the least, on average, of any of the major sports leagues.
And there's more bad news, courtesy of the tax man.
Sam Bradford does pretty well for himself, earning about $13 million each year as Eagles quarterback. But then Uncle Sam comes calling...
"We found that he's giving up about 46-percent of that in taxes," says Nick Wallace, data editor at the personal finance site SmartAsset.com.
Most of it, Wallace says, is the federal rate:
"Almost 42-percent, but then he's also paying some pretty significant state and city taxes on that as well -- over 6-percent between those two."
Then there's the "jock tax." When the Birds are on the road, those cities and states also have a hand out -- except the Cowboys' hometown:
"Philly does benefit from playing in Dallas, Texas every year where there is no state tax, so they don't have to pay jock taxes on any of that income," explains Wallace.
For Bradford, all this adds up to more than $6 million in taxes each year. According to SmartAsset's analysis, he has the 17th highest tax rate of all NFL players.
How does a player save money? Play for the AFC South, since Tennessee, Texas, and Florida take not a penny of regular income.