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U.S. finance question:
What actually makes a non profit a non profit?
It seems that they can post a net income year after year. And it doesn't matter how big that net income is. Is there any accountability for where that money goes?
Example: Many non profit hospitals post tens or hundreds of millions in income per year, while receiving tax empty status (to the tune of 100+ million dollars per year), and many of them also receive millions in subsidies for charity work.
Why is this legal?
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United States40729 Posts
On February 26 2019 08:21 travis wrote: U.S. finance question:
What actually makes a non profit a non profit?
It seems that they can post a net income year after year. And it doesn't matter how big that net income is. Is there any accountability for where that money goes?
Example: Many non profit hospitals post tens or hundreds of millions in income per year, while receiving tax empty status (to the tune of 100+ million dollars per year), and many of them also receive millions in subsidies for charity work.
Why is this legal? Intent is the difference. A for profit exists to generate a profit. A not for profit exists to serve another purpose, such as spreading a religion or serving a community, but may make a profit incidentally.
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On February 26 2019 08:21 travis wrote: U.S. finance question:
What actually makes a non profit a non profit?
It seems that they can post a net income year after year. And it doesn't matter how big that net income is. Is there any accountability for where that money goes?
Example: Many non profit hospitals post tens or hundreds of millions in income per year, while receiving tax empty status (to the tune of 100+ million dollars per year), and many of them also receive millions in subsidies for charity work.
Why is this legal?
The main thing is that the owners of the non-profit organization aren't allowed to take their profit out of the organization. For normal companies this is done by, for example, having the company issue dividends.NGOs can't do this.
Answering your "Why is this legal?", it's because if the owners can't ever take out the profit, the organization has no option but to reinvest in its core purpose.
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Awesome, appreciate the answers! I still see some... weird issues with that (like ... what controls salaries?). But the general idea definitely makes sense.
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The down side is when they instead of using that money for whatever the purpose they can bloat and just overpay a lot of people or spend it on marketing for more donations. Which I guess isn't the worst thing for the economy but it sucks when you hear that like 5 cents out of every dollar donated to certain charities actually makes it where the intention is.
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On February 26 2019 11:47 travis wrote: Awesome, appreciate the answers! I still see some... weird issues with that (like ... what controls salaries?). But the general idea definitely makes sense.
In a way, governance is the same as in regular companies: the owners (or a board representing the owners) pick a CEO, who picks his directors and chooses what salary policy that will be followed.
In another way, though, it's more complicated because the NGO's bottom line is never in $$$ but in whatever it wants it to be ($$$ is at best an intermediary objective), so measuring both company and employee success is iffy. When measuring success is complicated and profits aren't there to be withdrawn, it can lead to abuse, like Jimmy says.
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United States40729 Posts
The theoretical concept is that the IRS polices their tax exempt status to ensure that they're not being abused. The reality is that NfPs aren't policed because the IRS has been gutted. They can basically do what they want without fear of audit. I audited a NfP a few months ago that was pretty remarkable in terms of noncompliance.
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Well, what spurred the question was my wife was bringing up an issue in Baltimore with Johns Hopkins Hospital. She works for a public interest law firm, and a nurses union had brought to her an issue that they have been investigating with Johns Hopkins, JH gets tens of millions of dollars per year to spend on charity (mostly, to help poor people pay their hospital bills). Yet year after year JH isn't spending hardly any of that money, while simultaneously suing middle and low income people into oblivion and putting liens on their homes(in many cases, leading to their homes being sold - but im not a finance person I don't know how that stuff works). So anyways, out of curiosity,I checked their tax records, and they post insane profits every single year.
If anyone is curious, the nurses union has literally been doing their own investigations on the matter and are publishing various findings: https://act.nationalnursesunited.org/page/-/files/graphics/1118_JHH_CharityCare_Report_web.pdf
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Edit: nvm, that clears that up
Looks like Maryland needs to change their rate support procedures, they're getting fleeced!
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On February 26 2019 21:32 travis wrote:Well, what spurred the question was my wife was bringing up an issue in Baltimore with Johns Hopkins Hospital. She works for a public interest law firm, and a nurses union had brought to her an issue that they have been investigating with Johns Hopkins, JH gets tens of millions of dollars per year to spend on charity (mostly, to help poor people pay their hospital bills). Yet year after year JH isn't spending hardly any of that money, while simultaneously suing middle and low income people into oblivion and putting liens on their homes(in many cases, leading to their homes being sold - but im not a finance person I don't know how that stuff works). So anyways, out of curiosity,I checked their tax records, and they post insane profits every single year. If anyone is curious, the nurses union has literally been doing their own investigations on the matter and are publishing various findings: https://act.nationalnursesunited.org/page/-/files/graphics/1118_JHH_CharityCare_Report_web.pdf
I'm no expert in finance, specially not US but this sounds like a case for Mike Ross. Is the salary of the hospital management public knowledge?
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I see a lot of new guys (< 100 posts) here on TL since last week or sth.
Is the bot nation overtaking us? Is Starcraft picking up fame again? Did suddenly all the lurkers come out of the shadow?
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On February 28 2019 16:59 Harris1st wrote: I see a lot of new guys (< 100 posts) here on TL since last week or sth.
Is the bot nation overtaking us? Is Starcraft picking up fame again? Did suddenly all the lurkers come out of the shadow?
Usually when I get that feeling, it means I'm looking at the community threads from liquiddota instead of teamliquid.
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On March 01 2019 00:04 Oshuy wrote:Show nested quote +On February 28 2019 16:59 Harris1st wrote: I see a lot of new guys (< 100 posts) here on TL since last week or sth.
Is the bot nation overtaking us? Is Starcraft picking up fame again? Did suddenly all the lurkers come out of the shadow? Usually when I get that feeling, it means I'm looking at the community threads from liquiddota instead of teamliquid.
Nothing like that. All SC2 threads and a lot of them concerning IEM Katowice. This question can probably only answered by a TL god, if the amount of posts and user registrations have picked up this month/ year
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Another one of those:
Is there a list somewhere for post count -> Icon?
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Another question about US finance - is anyone familiar with ASU 2018-13 as it pertains to the difference between a "Purchase" and an "Issue" on a Lvl 3 fair value disclosure?
My read on this is that a purchase would be a contribution to an investment where an Issue would be the issuance of debt - which would be the difference between a buy of an investment vs. a draw on a revolving loan. Does anyone have a read on this that is different than mine?
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My brain is about to explode: is Japan on the western or eastern side of the Pacific Ocean?
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United States40729 Posts
On March 12 2019 03:27 Sent. wrote: My brain is about to explode: is Japan on the western or eastern side of the Pacific Ocean? Western of course. The sun rises over California before it rises over Japan. East/west are effectively relative terms defining whether something is upspin or downspin of another location. The world is round so everything is both from everything but if you frame the question using a flat earth, such as a map centered on the Pacific, it’s easy to answer.
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I would argue thats bullshit.. By centering it on the pacific we would have to rewrite all of wetsern literature. It obviously has to be centered on europe or at least the antlantic, else the far east isn't the far east anymore.
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The question was "is japan on the eastern or the western side of the pacific ocean"
That means you are talking about the position of stuff relative to "the pacific ocean", and in that regard, japan is clearly on the western side of it.
However, the stuff on the western side of the pacific ocean is also "the east" due to it being historically the eastern end of the known world, while the US is seen as part of the west, both due to cultural similarities to european countries, and because it is to the west of europe, which historically was the western end of the known world.
So, if you take the different meaning of "the side of the pacific ocean that is close to "the east" as defined above, japan is also there. However, this feels like a very weird semantic thing to do. The literal meaning of "western side of the pacific ocean" is a lot more intuitive, and makes sense to people with a map of the pacific ocean and a compass printed on it, without any history etc... added in.
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United States40729 Posts
On March 12 2019 06:52 Velr wrote: I would argue thats bullshit.. By centering it on the pacific we would have to rewrite all of wetsern literature. It obviously has to be centered on europe or at least the antlantic, else the far east isn't the far east anymore. East is where the sun rises. West is where it sets. If you’re on the Pacific Japan is closer to sunset than sunrise.
You might as well say that from your frame of reference someone is left handed because their dominant hand is on your left. The only problem being that if you stand behind them they become right handed. The only meaningful frame of reference to use is that of the Pacific.
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