In a legal battle being monitored nationally, the Illinois Supreme Court has ruled that state officials were right to revoke the Provena Covenant Medical Center’s exemption from property taxes because the hospital did not provide enough charity care, writes Crain’s Chicago Business.
An appellate court was correct “that the record was inadequate to demonstrate that Provena was a charitable institution,” the Illinois Supreme Court said in a statement.
The Supreme Court’s decision about the status of the hospital, in Urbana, will be closely scrutinized by hospital and government officials across the country as debate continues over how best to quantify the charity care provided by nonprofit hospitals in exchange for tax exemptions.
In 2003 Champaign County tax officials removed the hospital’s tax exemption, saying the amount of money the facility spent on “charitable activities” fell short.
0 Responses to Illinois Supreme Court Rules Against Hospital in Property-Tax Case
bbinewcanaan - March 18, 2010 at 2:43 pm
Jeff,Thought this was interesting.Stu
shybear309 - March 18, 2010 at 3:10 pm
There is less and less difference between large nonprofits and large corporations. Both focus on the bottom line and the nonprofits pay little attention to being philanthropic and charitable except when it benefits their bottom lines.
mark900 - March 18, 2010 at 5:52 pm
Let’s hope this is the first in a series. In most of the USA the notion of charity health care is a fiction. No need to reward what is essentially indistinguishable from a for-profit business with tax subisidies.