Monday, September 14, 2009
Non-Profits as an Economic Engine
When Governor Patrick held his creative economy roundtable at Mass MoCA last month, one of the more interesting lines of discussion came from Kevin Sprague who brought up the often overlooked reality that most economic policy planning ignores, and even penalizes, non-profits. In a region like the Berkshires, that can be very short sighted. The current health care debate evidently is a good case in point:
“We had our nonprofit lobbying day on Capitol Hill in July, and our members spoke to their elected officials about this issue,” said Tim Delaney, chief executive of the National Council of Nonprofit Associations. “We heard a constant refrain: ‘Gee, we never thought about nonprofits as employers before.’ ”With a tax credit, for profit businesses will be able to reduce the cost of employee health care. Why should non-profits be forced to pay full freight? It kinda' defeats the purpose of the whole exercise. ¶ 7:49 PM
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Nonprofits don't pay any income taxes, in many cases they get money directly from the government and/or receive donations which are actually subtracted from the taxes of the donors, and they often even avoid paying property taxes. In other words, nonprofits' revenues (and tax expenses) are subsidized, whether this revenue goes to pay salaries, benefits, or non-employee expenses.
What we seem to be debating is whether nonprofits should get an additional subsidy based on the government paying a portion of the health costs for each of their employees, as if health care is a peculiarly onerous cost, or one for which the government is peculiarly responsible, in a way that salaries and rent are not.
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What we seem to be debating is whether nonprofits should get an additional subsidy based on the government paying a portion of the health costs for each of their employees, as if health care is a peculiarly onerous cost, or one for which the government is peculiarly responsible, in a way that salaries and rent are not.
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