Free Ride : The Tax-Exempt Economy

by Gaul, Gilbert M.; Borowski, Neill A.

• ISBN13: 9780836280296
• ISBN10: 0836280296
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1993-10-01
• Publisher: Andrews McMeel Pub

Summary

The National Football League, that bastion of free enterprise and million-dollar quarterbacks, is not what you normally think of when someone says non-profit organization. Or the Motion Picture Academy of Arts and Sciences, which puts on the dazzling $6 million Oscars show each spring. But thanks to the largesse of Washington lawmakers, these and 1.2 million other groups qualify as tax-exempt, nonprofit organizations. And you make up for the taxes they don't pay. A major but little-noticed change has taken place in the American economy in the last twenty years: the dramatic growth of nonprofit businesses. These businesses had an estimated $500 billion in revenues in 1990 - nearly six times the income of farms, five times that of utilities, and twice as much as the construction industry - virtually all of it off the tax rolls. This startling analysis exposes some major abuses by tax-exempt organizations - nonprofit hospitals, private colleges and universities, and foundations. Based on the series in The Philadelphia Inquirer by Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Gilbert M. Gaul and business reporter Neill A. Borowski, a skilled database journalist, this book is a must read for every taxpayer.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments
The profitable world of nonprofits	p. 1
For sale: Names of donors	p. 32
Charitable hospitals: Where's the charity?	p. 42
Why your kid can't afford college	p. 67
IRS: The cops that can't keep up	p. 91
Charity pays: How much they make	p. 114
Cheap money, for nonprofits only	p. 143
Warehouses of wealth	p. 160
Finding out on your own	p. 177
Epilogue	p. 182
Index	p. 189
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