Zelinsky: The Case for Taxing Nonprofit Hospitals

Following up on his 2022 article The Commerciality of Non-Profit Hospitals Requires Them to be Taxed: Bringing the Debate to a Conclusion, 42 Virginia Tax Review 401, Edward A. Zelinsky (Cardozo) has written The Case for Taxing Nonprofit Hospitals, Tax Notes, Oct. 24, 2023. From the Introduction:

Despite the label “nonprofit,” the contemporary nonprofit hospital is an essentially commercial institution, indistinguishable from its taxed, for-profit competitors. To enhance fairness and efficiency, similar institutions should be taxed similarly. Because the profitable operations of nonprofit hospitals today resemble the remunerative activities of for-profit hospitals, the federal income tax and the states’ income, sales, and property taxes should tax all of these hospitals in the same way.

Lloyd Mayer