NPR and ProPublica report that Senator Chuck Grassley is not letting his departure from the Senate Finance Committee deter him from continuing to challenge the practices of tax-exempt nonprofits. Responding to earlier stories from these two outlets that some nonprofit hospitals have been seizing the wages of low-income patients, Senator Grassley is now demanding that those hospitals explain their actions and challenging them on whether those actions are consistent with their tax and nonprofit status. He is also invoking the provision included in the Affordable Care Act and codified in Internal Revenue Code section 501(r)(6) requiring section 501(c)(3) hospitals to make “reasonable efforts” to determine if an individual is eligible for financial assistance before engaging in extraordinary collection actions as a condition of maintaining their tax-exempt status.
Lloyd Mayer
