Australian Football League side Hawthorn fears the "looming footy department tax will reduce the financial powerhouse to 'just a break-even club,'" according to Mark Hayes of the HERALD SUN. Hawthorn President Andrew Newbold said that barring a "radical restructure" of the Hawks' footy department, the club will be "forced to pay" almost A$4M ($3.7M) in AFL equalization taxes in the next two years. Newbold: "We've really got to guard against measures that bring some clubs back to the pack when these things were originally intended to help other clubs up." Based on last year's spending, Hawthorn will "exceed what's expected" to be a A$9.3M cap by A$2.5M in '15 when the "luxury" tax is 37.5 cents per dollar. That "impost will double" in '16 when the rate hits 75 cents, "taking the luxury tax hit for the two years" to almost A$3M. The AFL will impose a "separate tax on club revenue, which will cost Hawthorn, along with fellow financial giants Collingwood and West Coast," the maximum A$500,000 a season. Newbold said that the revenue tax was fair (HERALD SUN, 8/6).
