Op-ed at the Wall Street Journal,
James Piereson and Naomi Schaefer Riley: Why Shouldn’t Princeton Pay Taxes?
Money-making ‘nonprofit’ universities don’t pay a fair share of the costs of local public services.
"According to the lawsuit, the university took in over $115 million from patents in 2011, of which $35 million was given to various faculty members. The lawyer for the plaintiffs told the Times of Trenton that “People in Princeton pay at least one-third more in taxes because the university has been exempt all of these years.” If all of the school’s property were taxed, the bill would come to roughly $28 million a year, instead of the roughly $10 million the university is now contributing voluntarily to town coffers."
Under General Revenues, Section A (Sheet 4A), the Princeton municipal budget only shows $2,475,000 as “Princeton University Fair Share”, not $10 million. I do not know how they arrived at $10 million.
Which brings me to the issue of transparency:
If PU were to pay real estate taxes, the public would need to have full disclosure of where the funds would go. Otherwise, it would mean more spending on more extravagant facilities or, in a worst-case scenario, more debt issued while using the new property tax revenues as reserves. Either way it would mean no relief to Princeton residents.
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No matter how you cut it, fiscal responsibility doesn’t grow from more revenues; you must recognize that the taxpayer is not an open checkbook.
(Cross-posted at Fausta for Council.)
