I own a two family home here in town. With the costs associated with owning a 100 year old home, taxes, the ever increasing cost to heat the place, and the “mysterious” increase in the power bill since the switch to the new meters, I’ve been operating at a break even point for the last year or so.
Now, with acting city manager Pat Finnigan’s budget that after a token cut by the council imposes a two percent tax increase for Portlanders who have the audacity to own an eighth of an acre in the middle of the city, I’ve been put over the edge – I’ll no longer make a profit on my little apartment house.
So, the logical next step is to file my 501-3c papers and become a non-profit organization.
I’ll immediately turn the house over to my new non-profit. It will get the car too. If I could sign myself over to it, I would as well because it seems that’s the only way to get tax relief in Portland
MaineHealth just finished making over the old Sears Roebuck building down on Free Street. They did such a great job that the refurbishing increased the tax value of the building. It looks so fabulous and we should all be thankful that they have taken an old blighted building and given it a sprucing-up. So thankful, in fact, that we should all do something for them. How about giving them one hundred thousand dollars! They deserve it, and after all, they’re not for profit.
Well, at least they’re not making a profit on ALL the floors of the building. See, the new MaineHealth building has a few floors within that are their profit centers. They’ll have us believe that these subsidiaries have nothing to do with the company’s main focus, the profit areas are walled off and the workers are levitated to the second floor profit center on their way to work and sent down exterior chutes at the end of the day. This way, profit types have no contact with the not-for-profit do-gooders on the first floor.
So MaineHealth wants a tax break on the parts of the building where non-profit work is being performed and it looks like they’ll get it, too. See, the laws over the years have migrated from wording to protect “us,” to wording that benefits “them.” So now we’re to the point that when a corporation (them) wants to grab a little more profit, ahem, I mean, more money to pay their executives millions, they’re probably going to get it.
John Anton, the only person on the city council that speaks and votes for the “us” crowd gets it right when he says it’s not right and the law should be changed. But it won’t be. They have a lot more money left over from all that profit they’re not making to pay people to camp out in Augusta
And there will be no cut in services to MaineHealth or their precious Medical Center in the West End . We’ll still plow the roads around it in the winter and repair them in the warmer months. Maybe we’ll use a little less salt on the ice, but I doubt it.
MaineHealth claims the service they provide to the community more than makes up for the tax cut they’ll receive for their headquarters. Perhaps, but it seems to me that a Portlander pays the same for a hospitalization as does a person from Gorham. The only difference is the guy from Gorham isn’t sweeping the street outside the hospital. That’s why they should pay up.
But instead they are going to take advantage of a law they probably helped pen and take just a little bit more from you and I. So join me at a law office near you and file for non-profit status. This way we can ask for OUR tax break. You might even consider using Pierce Atwood after their move down to Merrill’s Wharf.
That way you can enjoy the view of Casco Bay we paid for while you’re filling out the paperwork.
(Jeffrey S. Spofford is the circulation manager for The Portland Daily Sun. His column appears Fridays.)
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