They should be a well funded public service that don't make a profit in the first place.
Why? To give terrible service and managed by bureaucrats? Or being a leech of the state medical system?
Hospitals that make profits should pay taxes
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Re: Hospitals that make profits should pay taxes
#32The hike idea of a “nonprofit” is dumb and ripe with abuse. Nonprofits still have to pay payroll, the phone bill etc. Why have someone deciding that they don’t have to pay taxes? They can certainly just show a loss for year after year.
The idea is that we want more of what nonprofits do. No taxes is an incentive.
A nonprofit that turns a profit is presumably putting it to work eventually, such as adding a new wing. It's not as if they can do stock buybacks because there isn't any.
There are many ways this structure is abused but the idea isn't absurd.
Re: Hospitals that make profits should pay taxes
#33And virtually every other non-profit org should also pay taxes, including churches. This is not just a federal income tax thing. The variety of local property tax abatements for supposed community benefit organizations is incredible.
I'm not an expert on the rules for charities, but there are rules that specify some ratios for genuine charitable spending, overhead, management pay, and rules re nondiscrimination, etc. As long as these regulations are strict enough to prevent gross abuse, requiring nonprofit orgs that accumulate endowments to adhere to those rules should be sufficient. But evidently those rules and the way they are enforced are not preventing gross abuses. More transparency about nonprofit finances would help guide reform. And that should include religious orgs.
Re: Hospitals that make profits should pay taxes
#34They should be a well funded public service that don't make a profit in the first place.
Why? To give terrible service and managed by bureaucrats? Or being a leech of the state medical system?
How are the current for-profit hospitals not the same in addition to being hilariously unaffordable?
Re: Hospitals that make profits should pay taxes
#35Wait… they don’t already? What is even going on over there?
If they are for-profit they do. HCA Hospitals is the biggest for-profit and they paid $1.6 billion in taxes last year.
A lot of hospitals are non-profits or not-for-profits. Profits they make must legally go toward furthering their stated cause and cannot be paid out as dividends.
Re: Hospitals that make profits should pay taxes
#361. I go into hospital and come out with 90k bill - I have insurance and I pay my copay of $130. 2. Insurance says "nah, we'll give you 18k" 3. Hospital goes "ok". 4. Hospital writes off as a 72k loss, which essentialy is a "tax deduction". This is good for me, but such a perverse incentive for the hospital.
This is not good for you in long term. This is how the insurance mafia operates and why everything is so expensive. U maybhave a so called "good" insurance but someone is paying somewhere. A 90k bill should not be a thing regardless.
Re: Hospitals that make profits should pay taxes
#37Wouldn't this create an incentive for increased management bonuses in order to "tax-optimize" the profits?
Bonuses are subject to payroll taxes. So this seems fine.
Re: Hospitals that make profits should pay taxes
#381. I go into hospital and come out with 90k bill - I have insurance and I pay my copay of $130. 2. Insurance says "nah, we'll give you 18k" 3. Hospital goes "ok". 4. Hospital writes off as a 72k loss, which essentialy is a "tax deduction". This is good for me, but such a perverse incentive for the hospital.
Wouldn't they reasonably be limited to writing off actual expenses rather than the made up price? It seems hard to search on, but it doesn't really look like there are tax benefits from contractual adjustments.
That’s correct. The post you replied to has the common misunderstanding of how write offs work. They’re not a magic way to make money. They’re a way to not pay taxes on money that want actually made.
Re: Hospitals that make profits should pay taxes
#39so should religions that make profits pay taxes, something tells me neither will happen
Every church and religious order I've done work with on commercial projects paid taxes like any other commercial entity. The factor that determines if they pay taxes seems to be if they're engaged in what the government sees as commerce or if they see it as charity/practice of religion. Church bookstores, at least the ones I've been involved with, had to pay taxes. Donations for the operating of the church and charity work was not taxed. Apparently the IRS has plenty of tests to determine which is which.
Re: Hospitals that make profits should pay taxes
#40They should be a well funded public service that don't make a profit in the first place.
As a kid I didn't know much about "government", but I thought surely it must be Police, Firefighters and Medical Professionals.
If you have a siren on your truck, you are government was my thinking. These are all "public goods" and even as a kid with minimal "civics" education (and what I had was pretty much 100% Pro Usa America Is A Christian Nation for those formative years that I'm talking about).
I understood that as a basic. Nobody told me that "no, actually. Despite having sirens, ambulances are not (usually) driven by workers for the government." It wasn't til I lived on my own that I really understood that.