Ranting about Non-profits … again
Thursday, January 22nd, 2009
A few days ago I talked about our former community hospital,  now just another Marshfield Clinic profit driven money machine .
I can’t blame hospitals for not wanting to pay taxes. Nobody (well practically nobody) like to pay taxes. If I was on their side of the table I would be fighting to keep every ill gotten dime just like they do.
But, just because that is the way it has always been, doesn’t mean that is the way it should always be.
Boston’s major hospitals could and should play a significant role in easing the city’s budget crisis, according to a new report by an advocacy group finding that the institutions pay only a fraction of the cost of providing police, fire, and other services to the $2.4 billion in property the tax-exempt charities own.
Community Labor United, a coalition of union and activist groups, found that the city’s eight biggest teaching hospitals would have owed $64.2 million in city taxes in 2007 if their land and buildings had been taxed like commercial property. Instead, the hospitals made voluntary payments to the city of just $4 million in 2007, a year when they collectively had profits of more than $750 million.
“They’re not paying their fair share,” said Mary Jo Connelly, director of research for Community Labor United, whose members include a union seeking to organize city hospital workers. “In a time that everyone is sacrificing, it’s time for them to step up and start addressing these shortfalls. We know there are going to be significant layoffs of teachers, police, Fire Department personnel, and that sort of thing. If they paid only 25 percent [of the property tax rate], we could save 115 firefighters” from layoff.
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