This is true, to an extent. By design so-called "non-profits" are truly just restricted from paying dividends (which can only be paid from profits). This is ill

This is true, to an extent. By design so-called "non-profits" are truly just restricted from paying dividends (which can only be paid from profits). This is illsutrative, however, in the broader sense most taxable corporate entities forgo dividends for a variety of reasons. That is to say, they find the payment of dividends to required subsequent re-capitalizations via finacial markets to have economic entropy. Companies retain their profits, as a result, for the benefit of management (avoiding market benchmarking) and to a lesser extent, shareholders. A non-profit and a for-profit company are not that much different it turns out once this is considered a point of equivalence. If you take that argument to its logical conclusion, its makes sense also not to pay taxes (more operating cash flow retention). Thus, from the perspective of principal-agent theory, an eefficientnon-profit structure fully capitalized and run equivalently a "non-dividending" but "operating profit" maximizing entity. The purpose of maximizing revenues less costs is to opportunistically extract economic rents.