Senate Asks PIF Governor Yasir Al-Rumayyan to Testify Before Congress
It seems even with inflation, climate change and the Ukraine war, the U.S. Congress still has the bandwidth to examine the PGA Tour ‘s relationship with the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia.
Both the House and Senate are weighing in and as time passes since the framework agreement that was announced on June 6, elective representatives have started to carve out their fiefdoms to investigate and potentially legislate for or against.
The latest salvo came from Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) in a letter to Governor Yasir Al-Rumayyan of PIF dated July 27.
Blumenthal, the Chairman of the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, oversaw the hearing on July 11 when acting PGA Tour Commissioner Ron Price and PGA Tour Policy Board Member Jimmy Dunne testified about the framework agreement and the process and intent going forward to conclude a definitive agreement between the PGA Tour and PIF.
At the end of the hearing, Blumenthal indicated another hearing was likely warranted.
As part of preparing for the July hearing, the subcommittee asked both the PGA Tour and PIF for documents that would assist the committee in its investigation. The PGA Tour supplied 275 pages of documents to the subcommittee and PIF supplied none.
In the July 27 letter, Blumenthal has requested (but not demanded or subpoenaed) documents not only about the relationship between the PGA Tour and PIF but about all of their dealings and relationships in the United States. Blumenthal states that the agreement with the PGA Tour appears to be only one element of PIF’s efforts at increased commercial engagement with the United States.
The five-page letter further claimed that the PIF increased its U.S. investments from $2.3 billion in March 2019 to $35.5 billion in March 2023.
The letter also requests that Al-Rumayyan voluntarily testify in front of the subcommittee at a later date.
On July 26, Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) introduced legislation that would revoke the PGA Tour’s tax-exempt status.
Under the current law, the PGA Tour has 501(c)(6) status which provides tax exemptions for “business leagues, chambers of commerce, real estate board, boards of trade and professional football leagues."
Both Major League Baseball in 2007 and the National Football League in 2015 relinquished their non-exempt status.
Rep. John Garamendi (D-Calif.) offered a bill, No Corporate Tax Exemption for Professional Sports Act on June 7, which would revoke the PGA Tour's non-exempt status.
Wyden also introduced a second bill, The Ending Tax Breaks for Massive Sovereign Wealth Funds Act, which would eliminate the 30-percent exemption from withholding tax payments that currently exists for sovereign wealth funds and could directly impact the creation of the NewCo currently outlined in the framework agreement or other transactions with the PGA Tour.
“Most of America’s big pro sports leagues gave up their tax exemptions voluntarily when their revenues climbed into the stratosphere, and they hadn’t even shamed themselves with Saudi blood money. An organization that betrays its own word and agrees to become a profit generator for Saudi Arabia’s brutal regime has disqualified itself for a tax exemption,” Wyden said. “Many of the biggest sovereign wealth funds out there belong to countries that do not have our interests at heart, and there’s no good reason for hardworking American taxpayers to have to subsidize their huge profits.”