NBA Luxury Tax Summary

I've had a few requests for additional analysis of specific teams following the post on the new luxury tax. Without delving into every NBA team, this should provide a quick way to look at the current payroll of any NBA team, and the potential taxes. First, here's a great summary of NBA team payrolls by Basketball Reference. What could the tax for team X look like? 

 

Here's how the new luxury tax rates are calculated:

 

 

The $70.3 million starting point is based on the level for the 2012-2013 season. The tax increases don't stop here, though... they increase by $0.50 for every additional $5 million of a team's payroll. So, for a regular taxpayer, payroll above $100.3 million would be taxes at $4.75, and so on.

 

Based on that math, here's a quick summary of the tax bills for teams at different payroll levels going forward:

 

 

 It should be noted that the payroll numbers don't include things that are very likely, but haven't officially occurred (e.g. Chris Paul re-signing with the Clippers, next year's 1st round salaries, rookie deal extensions, etc.). There are a lot of hypotheticals to consider, but this is at least a starting point.