Boxing superstar Manny Pacquiao’s promoter says his fighter will not end his boxing career with a fight in New York City because of the state’s high income tax.
“He’d have to be a lunatic,” Top Rank CEO Bob Arum said, according to The Wall Street Journal.
Pacquaio, who was named “fighter of the decade” by the Boxing Writers Association of America in 2010, was in New York with Arum Tuesday to promote his November bout with Brandon Rios in Macau, China. The fight is seen as a must-win for Pacquaio to prove he still has what it takes to compete at a high level after his knockout loss to Juan Manuel Marquez last December and his controversial decision-loss to Timothy Bradley in June 2012.
Pacquiao adviser Michael Koncz previously told Yahoo! Sports in February that Pacquiao was planning on fighting outside the U.S because America’s top tax rate of 39.6 percent made fighting in the U.S. “a no go.”
“Manny can go back to Las Vegas and make $25 million, but how much of it will he end up with — $15 million?” Arum added, further explaining Koncz’s point to Yahoo! Sports. “If he goes to Macau, perhaps his purse will only be $20 million, but he will get to keep it all, so he will be better off.”
New York City would even be a greater money drain than fighting in Nevada, which has no state income tax. New York’s state income tax for top earners is one of the highest in nation at 8.82 percent.
Macau has a top marginal income tax rate of 12 percent.
Ironically, while training for fights in the U.S., Pacquiao, who is also a congressman in the Philippines, has campaigned for tax-hikers like Democratic Nevada Sen. Harry Reid and Democratic California Gov. Jerry Brown.
Pacquaio has said that he has two or three fighting years left before he retires from boxing.