Year: 1976
Type: article
Abstract: The practice of exempting charitable and religious organizations,mutual benefit groups, and a variety of other nonprofit associationsfrom federal income taxation has persisted, with surprising consistencydespite minor variations in coverage, for many years. With rootsreaching back to the British Statute of Charitable Uses of 1601 and toearly state constitutional provisions,' most of today's exemptions fromincome taxation date from the Revenue Act of 1894 and were reenactedin the corporation income tax of 1909 and the Revenue Actof 1913. But neither upon their initial enactment nor during theensuing decades have these exemptions elicited more than cursorylegislative explanation, save for matters of technical detail. Commentatorshave been almost equally silent. These decades of benign neglectmay have reflected a conviction that the wisdom of tax exemptionwas self-evident, that the basic policy was politically invulnerableto change, or that taxation in this area would bring in little revenue.But there have been several departures from this legislative tolerancein recent years. This change in attitude, in our view, amply warrantsa re-examination of a policy long accepted almost without question.
Source: The Yale Law Journal
DOI: 10.2307/795444
Authors: Boris I. Bittker, George K. Rahdert
Institution: Yale University
Language: English
Subfield: Economics and Econometrics
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W1585972367