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Yea, it does seem like an excuse for the money raised by the church to make it into the local politicians hands. However, this can be a legitimate issue. For e

Yea, it does seem like an excuse for the money raised by the church to make it into the local politicians hands. However, this can be a legitimate issue. For example, New Haven, Connecticut, the site of Yale University, has become a notoriously crime-ridden area. It's not a very big place and something like half the property in the city is owned by non-profits (a few universities, a few large hospitals). Therefore the city's tax base is cut in half (US city revenues are largely from property taxes), but it still needs to provide infrastructure, police, public transportation, etc for everyone. But it makes it seem more suspicious doing it like this instead of passing a new law that formalizes payments for services.

why_only_15 8y ago
Yale pays $15m in taxes per year apparently, or at least did in 2011. https://web.archive.org/web/20110907184503/http://www.yale.edu/onhsa/about_YaleNH.htm https://web.archive.org/web/20110907184503/http://www.yale.e...
- colechristensen 8y ago
  That seems minuscule. The Yale endowment is a hair away from $30 billion dollars. Their budget is $4 billion per year. I don't feel good about tax benefits for organizations that big.
- phyller 8y ago
  I'm not disparaging Yale at all, just explaining how a lot of untaxable property can affect a city. Yale owns a lot of commercial properties in New Haven, including stores and offices. I'm sure they pay taxes on those. And like a lot of universities they pay for their own police and emergency services which takes a burden off the city. But there is also University of New Haven, Southern Connecticut State University, Albertus Magnus College, and Gateway Community College, as well as Yale-New Haven Hospital and all its satellite buildings and St Raphael. This is all in a town of 130,000 people, a quarter of whom live below the poverty line. Again, not saying any of these are bad institutions, or that the problems in New Haven are their fault, just that it is a tricky situation to deal with. https://www.politico.com/story/2017/12/31/yale-new-haven-hospital-community-trust-261660 https://www.politico.com/story/2017/12/31/yale-new-haven-hos...

why_only_15 8y ago

Yale pays $15m in taxes per year apparently, or at least did in 2011. https://web.archive.org/web/20110907184503/http://www.yale.edu/onhsa/about_YaleNH.htm https://web.archive.org/web/20110907184503/http://www.yale.e...

colechristensen 8y ago
That seems minuscule. The Yale endowment is a hair away from $30 billion dollars. Their budget is $4 billion per year. I don't feel good about tax benefits for organizations that big.
phyller 8y ago
I'm not disparaging Yale at all, just explaining how a lot of untaxable property can affect a city. Yale owns a lot of commercial properties in New Haven, including stores and offices. I'm sure they pay taxes on those. And like a lot of universities they pay for their own police and emergency services which takes a burden off the city. But there is also University of New Haven, Southern Connecticut State University, Albertus Magnus College, and Gateway Community College, as well as Yale-New Haven Hospital and all its satellite buildings and St Raphael. This is all in a town of 130,000 people, a quarter of whom live below the poverty line. Again, not saying any of these are bad institutions, or that the problems in New Haven are their fault, just that it is a tricky situation to deal with. https://www.politico.com/story/2017/12/31/yale-new-haven-hospital-community-trust-261660 https://www.politico.com/story/2017/12/31/yale-new-haven-hos...