Senate Finance Committee Chairman Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) is reopening a years-old probe into tax-exempt hospitals, saying that he’s concerned the hospitals aren’t using billions of dollars in tax savings to prioritize community needs.
In a letter to IRS Commissioner Charles Rettig, Grassley pressed for data on how many hospitals are in compliance with the requirements for tax exempt status and the status of IRS examinations of those not in compliance.
“Making sure that tax-exempt hospitals abide by their community benefit standards is a very important issue for me. As chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, I oversaw an investigation into the billing practices of the Mosaic Life Care hospital. That investigation resulted in debt relief of almost $17 million for thousands of low-income patients. This issue is still just as important to me now that I am chairman of the Senate Finance Committee,” Grassley wrote.
Sen. Grassley is seeking information about whether tax-exempt hospitals are meeting the statutory requirements laid out in section 501 of the Internal Revenue Code.
