Value, don’t Punish

I keep hearing that economic recovery depends upon the return of small businesses to a position of strength.  While nonprofits are, by no means, the largest part of the economy, we are an important factor that everyone seems to want to ignore.  And that just isn’t right.

According to a  Small Business Administration report released in February, there were 27.3 million small businesses (defined as business with fewer than 500 employees).  The nonprofit sector stands a tad below that at approximately 1.5 million.

A 2009 Congressional Research Read more

Freedom vs. Burden in Charitable Giving

It starts right about now:  an increase in solicitations in your snail and email boxes, on your phone and via all forms of social media, asking for donations for what is hoped is your favorite charity.  It continues with the news articles and radio and television stories on assessing where and how to give.  It continues right up to the first note of Auld Lang Syne.

The tug of war has begun:  charities that need your money versus the highly sought (and in high demand) donors Read more

Heyday for Cynics

No matter how cynical you get, you can never keep up.”
-Lily Tomlin

The chant is getting louder:  “Tax the nonprofits!  Tax the nonprofits.  It’s the answer to all our problems.  They get away with everything.”

Every day I’m reading of another jurisdiction looking to tax nonprofits–all or some–from Honolulu seeking to rescind the property tax exemption of nonprofits to Pittsburgh wanting to not only rescind the property tax but put a tax on tuition paid to its numerous colleges and universities; from Kansas seeking to add Read more

Paying for Pampered Poodles

 Is it true that our tax laws that allow individuals to donate tax free, as much of their assets as they wish to charitable causes is really another gift to the rich paid for on the backs of the rest of us?  Ray Madoff, Boston College Law School Professor, would have us so believe.   And her point is one that should give us all pause.  Noting Leona Helmsley’s bequest of $8 million for the care of dogs, she questions the acts of other similarly wealthy individuals, Read more