Synopsis
The National Football League, that bastion of free enterprise and million-dollar quarterbacks, is not what you normally think of when someone says non-profit organization. Or the Motion Picture Academy of Arts and Sciences, which puts on the dazzling $6 million Oscars show each spring. But thanks to the largesse of Washington lawmakers, these and 1.2 million other groups qualify as tax-exempt, nonprofit organizations. And you make up for the taxes they don't pay. A major but little-noticed change has taken place in the American economy in the last twenty years: the dramatic growth of nonprofit businesses. These businesses had an estimated $500 billion in revenues in 1990 - nearly six times the income of farms, five times that of utilities, and twice as much as the construction industry - virtually all of it off the tax rolls. This startling analysis exposes some major abuses by tax-exempt organizations - nonprofit hospitals, private colleges and universities, and foundations. Based on the series in The Philadelphia Inquirer by Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Gilbert M. Gaul and business reporter Neill A. Borowski, a skilled database journalist, this book is a must read for every taxpayer.
Reviews
There are approximately 1.2 million tax-exempt, not-for-profit organizations in the United States. They include universities, many hospitals, foundations, churches, museums, the National Football League, and the Motion Picture Academy. Gaul and Borowski, both investigative journalists, first wrote this expose as a 27-part series for the Philadelphia Inquirer. They believe that the existence of so many nonprofits has a profoundly negative effect on the national economy and the local tax base. In separate chapters on hospitals, museums, foundations, and universities, they recount how far astray each has wandered from its prime mission. This book does raise important questions about a phenomenon playing an increasingly large role in the national economy, but, like most crusading pieces, it suffers from its one-sidedness, e.g., all nonprofits are portrayed as equally venal. Recommended only for comprehensive general collections.
- Mary Chatfield, Angelo State Univ., San Angelo, Tex.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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