https://www.wsj.com/articles/endowment-t...os1&page=1

Interesting article in the WSJ regarding excise taxes levied on university endowments. Right now 33 schools paid taxes last year, with some proposed legislation that number will likely increase. This will also likely lead to some changes in how universities spend v invest their endowments going forward and alter the number of students they admit and enroll.

Tax the **** out of endowments.

An example of what's wrong with nonprofit endowments: Purdue University owns about 1/4 of the land in Tippecanoe County. About 2,600 acres of that is Purdue's main campus, but most of the rest (over 60,000 acres) is farmland.

Nonprofits aren't supposed to be allowed to operate for-profit business. However, an agricultural university can claim that the land is for "scientific research," even if they already have more than enough land to conduct all the experiments they ever want to run.

Whenever a farm goes up for sale, Purdue can pay more for it than a taxpaying farmer can because Purdue doesn't pay property tax or income tax. That's not only unfair, it's also bad business - a private company will usually run a farm more efficiently than a government entity. It also deprives the local governments of tax revenue and places a higher tax burden on the citizens of the area.

(10-05-2022 11:35 AM)Captain Bearcat Wrote:  An example of what's wrong with nonprofit endowments: Purdue University owns about 1/4 of the land in Tippecanoe County. About 2,600 acres of that is Purdue's main campus, but most of the rest (over 60,000 acres) is farmland.

Nonprofits aren't supposed to be allowed to operate for-profit business. However, an agricultural university can claim that the land is for "scientific research," even if they already have more than enough land to conduct all the experiments they ever want to run.

Whenever a farm goes up for sale, Purdue can pay more for it than a taxpaying farmer can because Purdue doesn't pay property tax or income tax. That's not only unfair, it's also bad business - a private company will usually run a farm more efficiently than a government entity. It also deprives the local governments of tax revenue and places a higher tax burden on the citizens of the area.

Good stuff.