Nonprofits Are Costing Taxpayers A Bundle

Coming up in the November elections here in Pennsylvania will be a referendum regarding changes on how Pennsylvania will treat tax exempt organizations. On Thursday, June 27th, 2013 SB4 cleared the house after passage by the state senate on Wednesday, June 26th, 2013

If voters approve this measure on the ballot in November it will change Pennsylvania's constitution so that the state legislature will have the sole authority to determine the tax-exempt status rather then allow courts to determine which organization qualifies as a charity.


The problem I have with that is politicians are always looking for some lobbyist group to pad their pockets come election time. With the courts, that's not so much the case.

The other issue I have is in some areas like Meadville, Pa. more than 43 percent of the land is held by tax-exempt organizations. Alarmingly, in some communities up to 2/3rd of the land area is held by non-profits.

If your interested you can find more details at 'The Patriot-News'

I'm not the only one who's been critical of this piece of legislation.

Pa. state Rep. Dan Frankel (during the debate prior to passage) urged members to oppose an effort to allow nonprofit organizations to not pay taxes, shifting more of the burden onto homeowners. Frankel argues that this major change to the constitution is being done without public input or hearings.


I urge voters in November to disapprove

We already have a whole bunch of grab bags through the NIZ, KOZ and other schemes that are exempting private investors from paying taxes. We have the state handing out a bunch of cardboard checks in 'walking around money' coupled with dozens of other incentives here in Pennsylvania. All of these (and more) are in hopes to curry political favor by our representatives. Why give them one more tool that will be paid for by the ever decreasing number of us who are left to pay taxes for them?