Our beautiful tax-exempt universities. We so want to keep them that way. Because they use the money we give them to give seven million dollars a year to football coaches! That is beautiful. That is so… university-y…
…[I]t is certainly reasonable to ask about the size of the salaries at nonprofits that are being subsidized with our tax dollars.
What? Why? Next you’ll ask why Harvard University is sitting on a 32.7 billion dollar endowment. Point One: None of your business. Point Two: It’s a goddamn nonprofit, that’s why! Don’t you know a nonprofit when you see one?
We get very competent people to serve as Cabinet secretaries for $200,000 a year. Suppose there were a cap on the pay at any organization with nonprofit status at $400,000 a year. After all, if an organization can’t find someone to work for it at twice the pay of a Cabinet secretary, then maybe it isn’t the sort of organization that taxpayers should be subsidizing.
The nonprofits will scream bloody murder if any measure like this is even considered. Undoubtedly, many of the nonprofits committed to reducing inequality and poverty will be yelling loudest.
Point Three: You sound like a socialist.
January 20th, 2015 at 1:27PM
“We get very competent people to serve as Cabinet secretaries for $200,000 a year.”
We do?
January 20th, 2015 at 2:11PM
Well… reasonably competent. Some of them.
January 20th, 2015 at 3:44PM
Well, of course, they’re not *really* serving as Cabinet secretaries (or other senior officials of federal or state governments) for salaries in the $200K range. These are mere downpayments on their “deferred compensation,” ie, the money they will later earn as public speakers, consultants, lobbyists, etc.
January 20th, 2015 at 4:14PM
david: Too true.
January 20th, 2015 at 7:20PM
I’m guessing we won’t hear this proposal in the State of the Union Address tonight?
Too bad.
January 22nd, 2015 at 6:57AM
Real tax experts ought to have a debate on our universities’ tax-exempt status. My understanding is that non-profits may actually generate a profit, but the payment of dividends is prohibited.
My gripe is that “pseudo-dividends” of a sort may actually be paid to non-profit stakeholders in the form of no-show jobs for brothers-in-law, trustee positions, and so on.
I don’t have any expertise here. What I do know is that the tax code treatment of economic activity is pretty important. (Think about group health insurance, e. g.)