The city of Boston is out with its latest report card grading nonprofits on their willingness to pay the city for the privilege of providing services here. The city collected $32.4 million in fiscal 2017 from hospitals, universities and cultural institutions whose real estate holdings are generally not subject to the property tax.
Boston is proud of its “voluntary” payment in lieu of taxes program, which tallies up all of the property that a nonprofit owns in the city, calculates what the institution would owe if the property were taxable, then multiplies it by 25 percent. Subtracted from that amount is how much the city determines is the value of the group’s “community benefits.” Then the organizations get what for all intents and purposes is a tax bill for the remainder.
Now, we have no issue with those institutions that agree to this arrangement and pay every dime of what the city seeks. That’s between them and their donors and trustees.
It’s the implication that those institutions that don’t cut a check in the full amount have shirked their responsibility that is galling. Every year there’s a report with little green check marks next to the good guys. The others don’t get a red “X” (yet), but they do get a good going-over from certain critics.
The city says the revenue is compensation for vital services it provides, and it has certainly been successful by the numbers. City Hall now collects more than twice what it collected when the Menino administration first implemented the program.
There’s no putting the genie back in the bottle. But the public ought to have both sides of the story.