Pacquiao’s next fight could take place in U.S, says Arum

By Chris Williams: It seems that Top Rank promoter Bob Arum is starting to have second thoughts about staging his fighter Manny Pacquiao’s next fight in September outside of the United States in order to dodge the high 39% tax rate Pacquiao would receive for fighting in the U.S.

Arum says that money Pacquiao will get for fighting in the U.S might be so good that it would still leave him with more cash than if he were to fight outside of the U.S in one of the Asian countries.

Arum told the Manila Standard, Pacquiao’s next fight in September “will not necessarily be held outside the United States. We’ll run the numbers. In other words we have to take everything into account and see where the most money is for everybody. Its obvious more money will be made fighting in the US. [Pacquiao] has to find out what the economic differences are and if it’s a little then it’s obvious where he should fight.”

Apparently, Pacquiao can get credit for the taxes taken out by the U.S for his Philippine taxes, according to the Manila Standard. In that case, the huge chunk of taxes taken out by the U.S doesn’t hurt nearly as much.

Arum believes that a Pacquiao fight won’t bring in as many pay per view buys if it’s staged outside of the U.S. It’s unclear why that will happen because if the fight is marketed on HBO like Pacquiao’s other fights have been, then it should sell just like before. But Arum believes it would generate only half as many PPV buys than a fight that takes place in the U.S. If that’s truly the case, then you can understand why Arum might not be as eager to have Pacquiao fight in Asia because he’d potentially be losing a lot of money.

With Pacquiao getting knocked out in his last fight by Juan Manuel Marquez, the focus seems to be on finding ways for Pacquiao to maximize the money he makes. Perhaps a big portion of Arum’s concerns are the result of the taxes going up at the start of 2013. But that’s the price that you have to pay to do business in the U.S nowadays and get the huge PPV buys from the American fans.