Another Nonprofit Health System Joins the Tax Rolls

A discouraging article from Tacoma, WA where both the city nor two of its largest employers, tax-exempt MultiCare and Franciscan health systems agree that a city imposed business tax is a suboptimal state of affairs. Chief Medical Officer Mark Adams put it eloquently: "I know you don’t have a money tree in City Hall. We don’t have a money tree in our hospital. We are really looking at the same sort of issues. There definitely is a consequence at this point in time to pulling money out of the health care system like this. Either some service has to give – we’re business people, too – or there will be jobs lost." The tax will add an estimated $538,000 to city budgets per year.　Putting emphasis on this trend is a recent article in Forbes which highlights the fact that this trend by local governments will only continue.　If you are a hospital CEO or CFO and you haven’t heard from your local government you might consider a preemptive strike and begin the conversation yourself.
　
The articles can be found here:
http://www.bellinghamherald.com/2012/02/22/2404383/council-votes-to-tax-multicare.html

and here:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/markbergen/2012/02/20/the-tax-bang-after-the-hospital-boom/