Interesting. From Wikipedia: > The Associated Press reported that Ichiro's contract extension defers $25 million of the $90 million at 5.5% interest until afte

Interesting. From Wikipedia: > The Associated Press reported that Ichiro's contract extension defers $25 million of the $90 million at 5.5% interest until after his retirement, with payments through 2032 If he retires at the end of next year, he'll make that money over 18 years. If he made it all at once, today, he'd pay about 9.8 million of that 25 in taxes (just punching things into a naive tax calculator; I'm sure his accountants would improve things. OTOH, it's also slightly low because it puts him in a lower tax bracket for the first 400K, which he doesn't get because of the other income he has). Ignoring the interest for a moment, splitting 25 million over 18 years he pays a total of 8.9 million. So he saves a million dollars doing it this way. Not bad. With the interest, he'd get paid more; it looks like 1.8 million per year for 18 years, so 32.4 million instead of 25. That's a bit of a raw deal if he has to pay that as regular income tax, since if he got the money now and put it in the market, it would perform about as well, but would get taxed at a capital gains rate. All in all, I suspect this is a compromise with the Mariners to alleviate cash flow and luxury tax pressure more than it's a shrewd tax move.