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City task force: More non-profits should make more payments in lieu of taxes
By adamg on Wed, 12/22/2010 - 3:52pm
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Comments
More taxes - more, more!
More taxes - more, more!
Two days before Christmas?
I think it's weird that they released this two days before Christmas.
They've been talking about this for a year and a half.
Looks as though the team hasn't met for a long time tho.
I think they're trying to bury the whole thing! Lost interest.
Bury or just disappear
The article that was up on Boston.com this morning - which I assume prompted the response from the non-profit - is gone. I went back to try to email a link and can't find it anywhere.
Different kinds of nonprofits
I totally get the Providers' Council taking that stance. I work for a few such organizations, and am about to replace some broken supplies with my own money. Remember the earlier discussions around here about how I'd make twice as much or more working for BPS instead?
Universities and such though, yes, they could help the communities out a bit, I think. And when group homes and subsidized child cares and stuff start getting endowments, then sure, the other kind of nonprofits can start paying PILOT payments too.
When several non-profits
When several non-profits start moving just outside the city into places like Somerville and Quincy somehow I don't think Boston is going to be too happy about losing local resources.
The three taxes of the
The three taxes of the non-profit sector - tax exemption, tax evasion and tax subsidies - are great for localized job creation but not much else. Tax equality would create a more stable taxable base and reduce resource-allocation distortion.
So lemme get this straight
Since 2003 (the oldest budget available online), inflation has run 18% and the city budget is up 29% despite the best efforts of the Commonwealth to rein them in with less aid. The budget now carries about 500 fewer employees. The school population is down almost 10%, according to posts I've seen here and elsewhere the number of "working" fires drops each year and perhaps the crime rate (homicide excepted) is lower? (no criticism of BFD or BPD who do a great and difficult job)
So we have fewer people, making a lot more money to do a lot less work and the city still needs a new revenue source?
Don't get me wrong - I'm firmly in the camp that the non-profits need to carry their weight and should pay a reasonable pilot- but the blatant money grab in saying they need even MORE money is MORE than a bit laughable.
One problem
The federal government makes the call on non-profits and government buildings being nontaxible. Not the state. Not the cities and towns. Boston may think it is sovereign, but it ain't. Notice that the Fed Reserve building doesn't pay taxes, either.
That said, how about a fee-for-service structure? I think that would be justified.
Consider as well that Boston would look like Baltimore without the strong non-profit sector.
Not quite
State law also makes nonprofits non-taxable (in some states, it's the state Constitution; in Massachusetts, just ordinance, dating from the 1840s).
Boston tried fee for service back in the 1980s; Emerson sued to overturn it and won.
(Also I tried to log in several times as well and UHub is hatin' on me. I blame pedestrians, bikers and drivers, who are all the worst flavor of people on earth, 'cept for the unicylicists.)
I think this might work if
I think this might work if there was some sort of distinguishing of non-profits like Harvard from much needed, less financially secure non-profits, like say, the Pine Street Inn.
I particularly would like to see higher PILOT payments from the universities and colleges, because since they bring in the students, they are using a greater unpaid for portion of city services than say, the patients at Dana Farber.