The General Assembly is reassessing the status of the state's tax-exempt nonprofits, particularly retirement homes. The move comes at the behest of counties, who say the proliferating organizations are costing them much in lost tax revenue. And the current system creates inequities between similarly situated taxpayers who are paying very different amounts of taxes. The law was enacted in response to a state Supreme Court decision that same year declaring a law that exempted only retirement homes owned by religious or Masonic organizations unconstitutional on the grounds that it violated the separation of church and state clause of the Constitution. North Carolina has more than 28,000 nonprofit organizations, which devote themselves chiefly to such pursuits as religion, education, charity, science, literature, and culture.
State law exempts particular nonprofits from property taxes.
The retirement homes would like the exemption extended so they can continue to operate as nonprofits. Critics charge that a number of them are lucrative retreats for the elderly rich. County commissioners and tax assessors would like the CCRCs to be exempted only in part. But many CCRCs provide services to the needy at little or no charge, and members of the legislative committee studying the issue want to address the problem without discouraging the good works. We have a proliferation of nonprofit entities doing business, and they're riding around in big automobiles, have big homes.