By Tom Weber, KWMU
St. Louis, MO – Promoters who bring boxing matches to St. Louis in the next few years won't have to deal with the city's amusement tax.
KWMU has learned that Mayor Francis Slay has signed into law a bill that will get rid of a 5% amusement tax on boxing tickets until 2009.
Slay says the city won't lose any money because there aren't any scheduled boxing matches at this time.
"If we drop the amusement tax, hopefully we'll get some more events here," Slay said in an interview on Tuesday. "If we do, we'll generate more sales taxes, because they still do pay sales taxes on tickets.
"We'll also generate more earnings taxes and bring more people in downtown and generate more taxes that way as well."
The effort cut the tax started after a championship bout featuring St. Louisan Cory Spinks drew big crowds to the Savvis Center this year.
Slay also says he's not too worried about other sports or teams now possibly asking for the same tax break. "We don't get any taxes out of boxing [right now]. So if we bring more boxing matches here it will generate more taxes.
"If somebody wants to address that issue, they have to tell us why it is we shouldn't collect that tax. Here we have a pretty good reason."