In a move that could cost the Rams as much as $352,000, Missouri’s highest court has reversed an earlier decision focusing on how much taxes and fees the football team collected when it was still playing in St. Louis.
The Missouri Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that an administrative hearing commission erred when it found the Rams did not have to pay state sales tax on a special city entertainment fee that was tacked on to tickets from 2007 to 2013.
During arguments before the high court in March, the state said the Rams owe up to $352,000 in ticket tax payments to the state. Attorneys for the Rams disagreed and argued that the state owes their business $401,000 in improperly assessed sales taxes.
The Rams are essentially arguing that they were taxed by the state for paying a local tax.
The Missouri Department of Revenue used the full ticket price to estimate sales taxes, but the Rams say the price included a 5 percent markup from 2007 to 2010 that was later used to pay the city’s ticket tax. The state should have assessed the tickets at 5 percent less than face value, the Rams said.
In its 11-page decision, the high court said the Rams were obligated to pay the special entertainment tax as a cost of doing business, while the state is allowed to charge and collect a sales tax on the total price of a ticket.
Attorneys for the Rams and the Missouri attorney general’s office could not immediately be reached for comment Tuesday.
The case will now go back to the state’s Administrative Hearing Commission for further deliberation. A time frame to resume the case was not immediately available.
The Rams, owned by Stan Kroenke, moved to Los Angeles in 2016.
According to Forbes magazine, the team is worth $2.9 billion.
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