World Series champion Dodgers top MLB luxury tax at $103 million as record 9 teams owe penalty

NEW YORK (A.P.) -- The Los Angeles Dodgers topped a record nine teams owing Major League Baseball's luxury tax this year with an unprecedented $103 million penalty, and the $97.1 million bill for the New York Mets raises their tax total under high-spending owner Steve Cohen to nearly $229 million.

The World Series champion Dodgers will pay a tax for the fourth year in a row. The Dodgers' tax payroll of $353 million included $1,032,454 in non-cash compensation for Shohei Ohtani, whose contract calls for use of a suite for games at Dodger Stadium and an interpreter.

The Yankees owe $62.5 million, according to figures finalized Friday by Major League Baseball and the players' association and obtained by The Associated Press. They were followed by Philadelphia ($14.4 million), Atlanta ($14 million), Texas ($10.8 million), Houston ($6.5 million), San Francisco ($2.4 million) and the Chicago Cubs ($570,000).

The total tax of $311.3 million topped the previous high of $209.8 million last year, when eight teams paid. Tax money is due to MLB by Jan. 21.

More: https://abcnews.go.com/Sports/wireStory/world-series-champion-dodgers-top-mlb-luxury-tax-117004419#:~:text=NEW%20YORK%20%2D%2D%20The%20Los,Cohen%20to%20nearly%20%24229%20million.

From the link:

• More than $1 billion in taxes have been collected since the penalty started in 2003.

• 15 teams pay $1.23 billion: the Yankees lead at $452 million, followed by the Dodgers at $350 million and the Mets.

How the tax is distributed (from the link):

• The labor contract calls for the first $3.5 million of tax money to be used to fund player benefits.

• 50% of the remainder to fund player Individual Retirement Accounts.

• 50% of what’s left is dedicated to a supplemental commissioner’s discretionary fund that is distributed among teams that are eligible to receive revenue-sharing money and have grown their non-media local revenue (for this year, the union and MLB agreed to allow discretionary fund distributions of up to $15 million each to teams whose local media revenue has declined since 2022 or 2023).