House Democrat calls for DOJ probe into Saudi-backed PGA-LIV merger, details bill ending tax benefit

Fox News' William La Jeunesse has the latest on the future of national golf on 'Special Report.'

Rep. John Garamendi is demanding the Justice Department investigate the merger of the PGA Tour with Saudi-backed LIV Golf, while proposing legislation to strip the organization of its tax-exempt status.

Garamendi, D-Calif., rolled out legislation this week called the "No Corporate Tax Exemption for Professional Sports Act," after what the congressman called the Saudi Sovereign Wealth Fund’s "surprise takeover" of the PGA.

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That legislation would end the tax loophole that the PGA Tour benefits from to avoid paying any federal corporate income tax.

Garamendi, during an interview with Fox News Digital, said the PGA’s exemption, if left untouched, "will now flow to the Saudi Arabian Sovereign Wealth Fund through their acquisition of LIV."

"The Saudi Sovereign Wealth Fund and MBS is going to get a tax break—an American tax break," Garamendi told Fox News Digital, adding that the PGA pays "no taxes, because under the tax code, it is a charity."

Garamendi explained that a number of professional sports leagues had tax-exempt status for years, but have since relinquished that status. 

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"PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan should be ashamed of the blatant hypocrisy and about-face he and the rest of the PGA Tour’s leadership demonstrated by allowing the sovereign wealth fund of a foreign government with an unconscionable human rights record to take over an iconic American sports league and avoid paying a penny in federal corporate income tax," Garamendi said, adding that the merger "flies in the face of