Do Good, Don't Pay Property Taxes?

In my humble opinion: It’s time for property taxes to apply to everyone, including non-profits of all stripes, governmental, religious and otherwise. I was listening yesterday to the Mayor of Harrisburg, PA and she mentioned that 45 % of the property in that city is property tax exempt. Harrisburg, of course, is the state capitol and the state burdens it with all those governmental buildings. And all the other “non-profits”, real or imagined, have to have a presence in the state capitol.

I can remember hearing that same lament from the Library Director in Concord, NH, also a state capitol. Even in Nashua, NH, the two hospitals that paid their chief execs millions of dollars avoided property taxes. Colleges are at least as bad, charging enormous tuitions and fees, paying football coaches millions and skipping property taxes. And don’t get me started on Churches, again real or imagined. Property taxes might even give some of them pause before they decide to build another gigantic monument and scale back to a more practical building.

In Boston, tax-exempt non-profits were encouraged to make payments to the City in lieu of taxes. Some did, some didn’t. In all these cases, I assume someone making an emergency call expects a City department to respond. I don’t care if it is arranged through some sort of sliding scale. It is time for these institutions to begin to routinely pay their fair share for municipal services for the buildings they own.