Allan Walsh rips Brian Burke for “uninformed” take.

Walsh goes off again.

HockeyFeed
HockeyFeed
Published 3 years ago
Allan Walsh rips Brian Burke for “uninformed” take.

Notorious and infamous National Hockey League player agent Allan Walsh has been making headlines for all the wrong reasons as of late and once again Walsh himself finds himself in the headlines for what could easily be viewed as a negative reason.

On Saturday night former NHL executive Brian Burke shared his thoughts on how the tax situation in the NHL has put certain teams at a competitive disadvantage, like teams in Canada, while providing a competitive advantage for teams in areas with lower taxes. This take from Burke came as a direct result of the Dallas Stars and the Tampa Bay Lightning competing in the Stanley Cup Final, both teams that in theory have an advantage when it comes to attracting free agents due to both their respective areas having no state tax.

Here's Burke in his own words:

Walsh was having none of it however. For whatever reason Walsh took personal offense to this take from Brian Burke and called him out for being "uninformed" on the subject. 

From Walsh:

I’m shocked at how uninformed this take is-

1. Players in Canada can set up a Retirement Compensation Agreement (RCA) and limit their tax liability to a flat 20%. With sound tax advisors, a NHL player can actually pay the same or less tax in Canada than he will Florida or Vegas.

The strange part about this though is I would be shocked to learn that Brian Burke was not familiar with the Canadian tax code. Sure Walsh is a player agent and has to be aware of it himself, but Burke has had the run of multiple teams in multiple different provinces inside of Canada and he even had the assistance of another player agent when doing research for the segment in which he made the comments. 

Sure enough another user on social media chimed in and pointed out to Walsh that only half of the money invested into an RCA by the players could be invested and used for growth, while the other half remained in control of the Canadian government, a much less appealing prospect than what Walsh was hinting at. After a few back and forths with the user Walsh appeared to give up on the argument, without admitting that he had made a mistake of course.

Stay tuned for the next episode of Allan Walsh should have not hit send. 


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