Tax The Rich Give To The Infrastructure
Instapundit notes that several ivy league schools are seeing highest return on their endowments in years. He suggests taxing those gains as heavily as liberal want to tax corporate gains. Anything to infrastructure people out of poverty.
August 22nd, 2007 at 12:49 pm
Isn’t it already taxed that way? Harvard’s endowment is run by the Harvard Management Company. Is this not a taxable entity? I believe that is is.
August 22nd, 2007 at 1:47 pm
From what i can tell income from these endowments are not taxed. Which is absurd and should not be the case.
August 22nd, 2007 at 3:41 pm
infrastructure just became a verb
August 22nd, 2007 at 6:32 pm
Hell yeah I verbed infrastructure. Thats just the way I roll.
August 23rd, 2007 at 10:01 am
Aren’t universities not-for-profit organizations? That’s a real legal distinction. If you want to tax them the same as corporations, you’d have to tax churches and charities as well.
August 23rd, 2007 at 12:50 pm
Regardless of status don’t you think income on endowment should be taxed?
August 23rd, 2007 at 3:08 pm
I think that capital gains should be taxed (the biggest difference between me and libertarians, probably), and I think that tax rates should be mdulated by a number of factors, including things like income as well as things like non-profit status.
August 23rd, 2007 at 3:52 pm
Did you answer my question.
Stated again:
Do you think income from university endowments should be taxed?
August 24th, 2007 at 7:34 am
If they’re non-profit organizations (and honor the requirements of being such), then all their sources of income should be taxed at a reduced rate.
August 24th, 2007 at 10:30 am
Do you think a new category should be created for non profits specifying that universities income from endowment is taxable?
August 24th, 2007 at 12:28 pm
Not really; maybe we should investigate universities closely to make sure they’re following whatever guidelines they need to to qualify as non-profits, or examine thsoe guidelines to see if they’re sufficient given the modern economy, but if universities are valid non-profit organizations then they should be taxed as such.
August 26th, 2007 at 6:27 pm
Endowments are trusts that are taxed. Look it up. Contributions from the sender are tax-free. It’s a way for wealthy folks who got a good education to maximize on tax breaks by giving to the ole’ alma matter. I have no problem with that.
August 27th, 2007 at 9:29 am
Jamie
We are talking about the money turned over from a trust each year to be used by the university as income. From what I can tell those funds are not taxed because universities have a non-profit designation.
Darwin
I find it rather revealing your reluctance to transform the status of certain universities receiving exorbitant income from their endowments so that they are taxable but at the same time show no compunction towards taxing wealthy corporations or people.
Whats the difference?
August 27th, 2007 at 3:03 pm
Would you rather they be taxed twice? That will teach those darn colleges.
August 29th, 2007 at 10:58 am
The difference is they’re non-profits? Which I’ve said like 3 times?
August 29th, 2007 at 11:28 am
You have said that 3 times? Three times. Really three times. Why I had no idea you said that 3 times. Huh, 3 times.
Anyway, as I said in response to your observation, which you made 3 times, how would you feel about changing that status so that university endowment income can be taxed.
Your resposne: ‘not really’.
Thus I wonder why you think it’s okay the income from the endowment of private universities not be taxed but other large organization’s income, like corporations should be taxed.
September 26th, 2007 at 9:30 pm
“Not really” was in response to creation of new categories; I think his implication was that Universities should be pigeonholed into one of the existing taxation categories (that is, for-profit or not-for-profit), based on the same criteria we use for any other organization.
That doesn’t strike me as a particularly radical position.