June 17, 2005
Tax Hospitals!
Apparently we're not taxing enough in North Carolina. Despite dozens and dozens of new taxes being introduced by Democrats in the Legislature, including brand new taxes on labor, and candy; and raising the sales tax rate and the income tax rate, the
Winston-Salem Journal wants even MORE taxes -- on non-profit hospitals.
The Journal is complaining that too many hospitals with valuable land that could be taxes are not paying taxes. Now these aren't the evil capitalist hospitals, but the non-profit hospitals that provide services to charity cases as part of their mission.
Even worse -- this opinion article was written by a Senator, Senator Hamilton Horton. He bemoans the fact that $984 million is tax-exempt in Forsyth county, and he could be getting cash from the hospital for that real estate. Of course, he conveniently leaves out that fact that everything to do with hospitals and medicine are already insanely expensive and making the hospitals pay more WILL increase the cost to consumers -- but then we have a 3rd-party payer system, so no one really knows or cares how much the hospital costs.
Hey Ham, instead of trying to get more money from taxpayers and businesses, how about you work on SPENDING LESS MONEY?
Posted by: Ogre at
05:15 AM
| Comments (2)
| Add Comment
Post contains 210 words, total size 1 kb.
1
This would be about a hospital that has $40 million in their reserves and yet they still want a government handout to support the clinic they build to replace the health dept. clinic? The one that builds a multi-million dollar building every year, even when they have to tear one down to have room to build it? The one that has bought up doctors' offices and other buildings near them, and oh, by the way, has a number of houses around it owned by the hospital, 'rented' by the foreign-born nurses imported to train at the hospital? Also, the original article was written not by Sen. Horton, but by a Raleigh journalist, who mentioned not only Forsyth County, but a number of other medical centers around the state. While I agree that the state government should do less spending, I agree wholeheartedly with the suggestion that not everything that has to do with a hospital should be tax-exempt.
Posted by: outraged taxpayer at June 18, 2005 12:14 AM (IVP8C)
2
The column does show Sen Ham Horton with a byline, so if he didn't write this one, the Journal is being dishonest.
I oppose any government handouts to anyone, period. The hospital is trying to play by the rules, and if the rules are wrong, let's change them! I'm all for removing tax-exempt status -- but let's do it for everyone, and not make rules for ONE organization with a sole purpose to increase spending for the government!
Thanks for stopping by!
Posted by: Ogre at June 18, 2005 07:02 AM (H0ySP)
Hide Comments
| Add Comment
Comments are disabled.
Post is locked.
16kb generated in CPU 0.0127, elapsed 0.0828 seconds.
88 queries taking 0.0749 seconds, 191 records returned.
Powered by Minx 1.1.6c-pink.
