September 18, 2003

Taxing Times for Charity

By Stephen G. Greene

More municipalities seek revenue from nonprofit groups

When the city of Bridgeport, Conn., asked a nonprofit home for the elderly to start paying taxes, the charity's leaders balked, contending that it should retain the exemption it had enjoyed since its founding in 1922. But deciding to fight almost put the Bridgeport Rescue Mission out of business. By this summer it faced a property-tax bill that, with interest and penalties, had ballooned to $318,000 -- nearly half of the

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