Advice and help with building history capacity.
The Minnesota Historical Society’s Local History Services helps Minnesotans preserve and share their history. This blog is a resource of best practices on the wide variety of museum, preservation, conservation, funding, and non-profit management topics. We’re here to help.
Finding Taxes
By: grabitsdm | April 15, 2008
A recent article on MinnPost and last year's Rainbow Ruling both deal with taxes and nonprofits. Thankfully neither have involved local historical organizations, yet. Scott Russell writes about "Expanded definitiion of fundraisers is puzzling nonprofits" on MinnPost. Russell details how the Minnesota Department of Revenue is treating art classes provided by the White Bear Lake Art Center as fundraisers rather than as programming designed to further its mission. The Rainbow Ruling from the Minnesota Supreme Court on December 6, 2007, disallowed property tax exemption for a nonprofit daycare. Both resulted in back taxes due. As America's service-based economy is stressed by rising costs for everything, government servants seem to be caught between a rock and a hard place. On the one hand, citizens are reluctant to have taxes raised since they face similar rising costs. Yet, government needs to function well, but cannot without additional resources. Russell touches on the way public servants are solving government's need for addtional money when he writes, "the state is trying to collect more taxes through existing laws rather than to pass new laws and new taxes."
Have you experienced anything of a similar nature? What are some measures that nonprofit historical organizations might use to ensure they do not become targets for expanded taxation?
Have you experienced anything of a similar nature? What are some measures that nonprofit historical organizations might use to ensure they do not become targets for expanded taxation?