Congress Examines Nonprofit Hospital Tax Exemption: Kiplinger Tax Letter
Providing community benefit is just one of many requirements for a charitable hospital tax exemption.


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Nonprofit hospital community benefit
Congress is eyeing the community benefit provided by nonprofit hospitals. These hospitals have to meet many rules to get and keep their tax exemption.
Nonprofit hospitals must provide a community benefit, observe organizational and operational rules, and satisfy other edicts related to emergency care policies, billing and collection data, community health needs assessment, and financial assistance policies for the indigent.

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Some lawmakers query whether the community benefits provided by these hospitals justify their exemption from taxes. A recent study by the Kaiser Family Foundation estimates the value of the tax exemption for nonprofit hospitals at $28 billion for 2020. This includes federal, state and local income tax; sales and property tax; and more.
The House Ways & Means Oversight Subcommittee held a hearing to investigate whether and what reforms would be necessary to ensure these hospitals provide a level of community benefit that is commensurate with their tax savings.
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Joy is an experienced CPA and tax attorney with an L.L.M. in Taxation from New York University School of Law. After many years working for big law and accounting firms, Joy saw the light and now puts her education, legal experience and in-depth knowledge of federal tax law to use writing for Kiplinger. She writes and edits The Kiplinger Tax Letter and contributes federal tax and retirement stories to kiplinger.com and Kiplinger’s Retirement Report. Her articles have been picked up by the Washington Post and other media outlets. Joy has also appeared as a tax expert in newspapers, on television and on radio discussing federal tax developments.
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