TY - JOUR
T1 - The conundrum of charitability
T2 - Reassessing tax exemption for hospitals
AU - Hyman, D. A.
PY - 1990
Y1 - 1990
N2 - Tax exemption is an ancient, honorable and expensive tradition. Tax exemption for hospitals is all of these three, but it also places in sharp focus a fundamental problem with tax exemption in general. Organizations can retain their tax exemption while changing circumstances or expectations undermine the rationale that led to the exemption in the first place. Hospitals are perhaps the best example of this problem. The dramatic changes in the health care environment have eliminated most of the characteristics of a hospital that originally persuaded the citizenry to grant it an exemption. Hospitals have entered into competition with tax-paying businesses, and have increasingly behaved like competitive actors. Such conduct may well be beneficial, but it does not follow that tax exemption is appropriate. Rather than an undifferentiated subsidy, a shift to focused goals will provide charitable hospitals with the opportunity and incentive to ''do the right thing.''
AB - Tax exemption is an ancient, honorable and expensive tradition. Tax exemption for hospitals is all of these three, but it also places in sharp focus a fundamental problem with tax exemption in general. Organizations can retain their tax exemption while changing circumstances or expectations undermine the rationale that led to the exemption in the first place. Hospitals are perhaps the best example of this problem. The dramatic changes in the health care environment have eliminated most of the characteristics of a hospital that originally persuaded the citizenry to grant it an exemption. Hospitals have entered into competition with tax-paying businesses, and have increasingly behaved like competitive actors. Such conduct may well be beneficial, but it does not follow that tax exemption is appropriate. Rather than an undifferentiated subsidy, a shift to focused goals will provide charitable hospitals with the opportunity and incentive to ''do the right thing.''
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M3 - Review article
C2 - 2278243
AN - SCOPUS:0025159747
SN - 0098-8588
VL - 16
SP - 327
EP - 380
JO - American Journal of Law and Medicine
JF - American Journal of Law and Medicine
IS - 3
ER -