Double Taxation
Every city is hurting for money. Every option is being explored to help.
Mayor David Cicilline of Providence wants to charge a $150/semester tax on students.
Just for going to school in Providence.
Cicilline’s office said there is no study showing how much students cost Providence for the use of police and fire protection and other services. The city points out that the private schools’ property, valued at more than $1.7 billion, is tax-exempt.
This is what is boils down to … tax exempt property. Lots of tax exempt property.
I was sympathetic with the Mayor until the report also stated …
Cities often look for revenue from universities to compensate for their tax-exempt status, and many schools already make voluntary payments to local governments. Providence’s four private schools — Brown, Providence College, Johnson & Wales University and the Rhode Island School of Design — agreed in 2003 to pay the city nearly $50 million over 20 years.
Wait a minute. Providence managed to get these universities to agree to volunteer payments of lieu of taxes and now also wants to go after the students individually?
I applaud those universities for recognizing the cost they are to city coffers and doing something about it.
Going after the students would now be a case of double taxation.
This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 26th, 2009 at 4:34 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
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