Corporate taxes

[magid]

According to the city newsletter I just got, the top ten taxpayers to the city of Cambridge in FY2006 included eight businesses, and two schools. MIT paid $23,481,937 (10.53% of the total tax levy), while the "President & Fellows of Harvard College" paid $3,058,258 (1.37%).

Interesting.

Comments

[jaq.livejournal.com]

Does this mean Harvard has better accountants?

[mangosteen]

What it means is that Harvard existed before Cambridge did, so things get Quite Weird.

[magid.livejournal.com]

Well, I think schools are tax exempt, so I think these might be payments in lieu of taxes, even though they were listed under 'taxpayers'; I don't know whether they have a separate category. Of course, if so, Harvard (if it's all Harvard; that wording is a bit odd, but I think it would be all Harvard) just comes off as being cheap, since they've got the largest endowment around.

And if it is actual taxes, then yeah, Harvard's doing interesting accounting things. Or has less interest in being an active part of the city. Or something like that.

[ckd]

Might be commercial space owned by the institution and kept on the tax rolls. MIT owns a fair amount of the nearby commercial property.

[magid.livejournal.com]

Why would it be to MIT's benefit to keep space on the tax rolls? I mean, it's good for the city and all, but I don't see what MIT gets out of that.

[ckd]

It's not being used as academic space; it's rented commercially. I suspect that what they get out of it is less fighting with the city when they need permits to expand or renovate said commercial space....

This 2001 article from The Tech talks about the Tech Square purchase and the issue of property tax on commercial property owned by the schools.

[magid.livejournal.com]

Ah, that would be why.

Interesting article; thanks for the link.

[jwg.livejournal.com]

Both institutions do have to pay taxes on commercially used property of which MIT own lots. They each also make payments in lieue of taxes (called PILOT by the city councillors) on the non-commercial stuff. MIT has historically been easier to deal with by the city than Harvard, but until recently neither has been willing to comit to an annual amount.

[godream.livejournal.com]

I don't see what MIT gets out of that
a you-scratch-our-back sorta deal? the city of cambridge could potentially make life much uglier for the institvte. for example, the dorm i live in has a history of coping with the cambridge fire code in interesting ways; conceivably cambridge could crack down, call the dorm unsafe, and boot 400 students out, making some mild inconvenience for us and the school. :p
... whyever it is that MIT wants Cambridge to like us, there's more to the sucking up than just the straight up money (http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2004/pilot-factsheet.html), or so the news office would dearly like us to believe.

[magid.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the link. I hadn't known a lot of that, though seeing it all together somehow made me think the writer was doing this defensively.

I suppose it's all a back-scratching situation. It's just... a bit different than what was presented in this little newsletter thingy. (And I don't think I want to know about 'interesting ways' to deal with the fire code...)

[mangosteen]

That likely does not include the "Annual Gift" that Harvard pays in lieu of taxes, which would put it on par with MIT.

[magid.livejournal.com]

I don't know; wouldn't MIT also have an annual gift?

(And, see my reply to Jaq; I'm not sure how they came up with these figures.)