Donnelly to introduce revised tax-exempt status bill - Rep. Brian Donnelly, D-Mass - Brief Article

Healthcare Financial Management, Oct, 1991

At press time, staff members for Rep. Brian Donnelly (D-Mass.) indicated that Donnelly soon would introduce a revised version of his bill to establish criteria that hospitals would be required to meet to remain tax exempt (see May "Updata"). A likely change is the removal of provisions that would require hospitals to provide specific levels of charity care. Another change is including intermediate sanctions that the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) could impose on hospitals judged deficient in providing charity care and other community benefits. Currently, the only sanction available to the IRS is complete revocation of a hospital's tax-exempt status--a drastic step that is rarely taken.

In testimony on the original Donnelly bill before the House Ways and Means Committee this summer, HFMA Treasurer Christopher F. Weinheimer, FHFMA, CPA, stressed the need for management flexibility in setting criteria to determne patients' eligibility for charity care. Imposing specific national charity care criteria, Weinheimer said, would be "impractical and inequitable in light of hospitals' varying circumstances."