Is Tax Exempt Harvard University Status Used For Political Activity Contrary to Local, State and US Tax Laws?

Remarkable, the kind of ethics promoted at the Safra Center. First founder and law professor Larry Lessig used the center and Harvard's tax exemption for political activity running his own campaign. Now this professor at the ethics center maybe also used her equipment, Harvard University email, computer, word processor, to conduct political activity in violation of US tax laws. See e.g., "Currently, the law prohibits political campaign activity by charities and churches by defining a 501(c)(3) organization as one 'which does not participate in, or intervene in (including the publishing or distributing of statements), any political campaign on behalf of (or in opposition to) any candidate for public office.'" If true it is a recurring example of abuse of state, local and US tax privileges by Harvard University ethicists in violation of the university's tax exemption. Maybe someone should show back bone and see how many other abuses there are by the Harvard ethicists and the unethical ones.

http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2016/2/24/professor-denounces-trump-piece/

Professor’s Op-Ed Calls For Unity Against Trump Campaign
By NIKITHA B. REDDY, CONTRIBUTING WRITER
Harvard Crimson
February 24, 2016

Cambridge, MA Residents Fear Property Tax Increase

Migrants (some claim refugee status) will continue to arrive in this sanctuary city, demanding better jobs, free food, free housing, free health care, free tuition, and free legal services. Those born with white privilege must show moral and spiritual good will, and give to the undeserving who want what they have. If you don't give it willingly they will take it from you, when they are the majority. Do you expect wealthy corporate not for profit charity volunteers at Harvard University to pay for the migrants?


Migrants Arriving

http://cambridge.wickedlocal.com/article/20151006/NEWS/151007403



LETTER: Concern over Cambridge councilors' talk of property tax increase
Posted Oct. 6, 2015 at 10:57 AM
Updated at 10:59 AM
To the editor:
Mary McLaughlin-Joyce, Blakeslee Street

Harvard Crimson Shows Support For Troubled Law School Ethics Professor's Presidential Campaign

Good citation of credentials certifying that Professor of Ethics "On Leave" Lessig is a bona fide member of the beautiful elite people. That provides him with an exemption from inconvenient laws, and from rectitude. Harvard University, his employer, enjoys property and income tax exemptions, from the City of Cambridge, the state of Massachusetts and the United States government. Prof. Lessig wants to be President so he can as Article II, Section 3 of the Constitution requires, the President to “take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed.” He asserts his motivation is to end campaign finance corruption of elections or something. The IRS tax code and US Department of the Treasury laws strictly prohibit tax exempt corporations from conducting political activity using its not for profit corporate status. Professor of Ethics at the Safra Center, Mr. Lessig, uses his office for his campaign, an example of "political activity," as defined in the laws. State and city exemptions follow US standards, which means he may be violating those exemption criteria too. 



Not to worry, Harvard University, a tax exempt corporation (charity, Ahem!) operating as a not for profit educational institution, has an endowment of $37 billion. Whatchu gonna do about it? Huh? The IRS selectively enforces laws against conservative not for profits. Harvard University a vigorous promoter of academics who approve of violence against white people, a vigorous supporter of diversity has no need to worry. The IRS will overlook any of their violations. So too will the Cambridge City government, which is in awe of the university. Likewise for the Massachusetts Department of Revenue, which is likely run by a Harvard University alumni, like the current and previous governors. If you are one of the beautiful people, and are largely endowed you too can ignore laws if they are a bother. Cheers.



http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2015/9/24/lessig-2016-scrut/



Lessig 2016
Harvard Law School professor Larry Lessig is an unlikely presidential contender. But his sudden leap into the 2016 race means that he’s serious about it.
BY MEG P. BERNHARD,

Harvard Crimson STAFF WRITER
SEPTEMBER 24, 2015

Bank Negligence Causes NY-CT Woman To Lose Half Her House

The left side of Rosanne Di Guilio's home is in Connecticut, while the right side is in New York

Photo: Douglas Healey
[From article]
A woman whose home sits on the border of New York and Connecticut was stunned to learn her neighbor owns half of her abode — because her bank failed to pay property taxes on the New York side, she told The Post.
Rosanne Di Guilio’s kitchen, living room and porch now belong to her neighbor Alethea Jacob, 52, who snatched up .2 acres of the half-acre plot for $275 at a county auction after it went into foreclosure in 2010.
[. . .]
Di Guilio, who is fighting the foreclosure in court, said Jacob demanded $150,000 when she tried to buy back the house after she learned of the tax snafu in 2013.
She insists Jacob schemed for access to her property to avoid fixing her own leaky septic tank.
[. . .]
The ordeal began after Di Guilio refinanced her mortgage in 2004 and JPMorgan Chase put New York tax money into an escrow account but never paid the bill and later sold it to the loan-service firm Seterus Inc., Di Guilio claims.
[. . .]
Chase will take responsibility for the cost Di Guilio will have to pay to buy back the property, she said.
Jacob and the bank are still negotiating a price.

http://nypost.com/2015/02/22/woman-loses-half-of-her-border-straddling-home-in-property-tax-snafu/

Woman loses half of her border-straddling home in tax snafu
By Jennifer Bain and Natalie O'Neill
New York Post
February 22, 2015 | 10:00am

Cambridge City Councilor Bullies Want Education Money For City Spending

[PR flack Kevin Casey said] "Over the past 10 years, Harvard has paid nearly $60 million in taxes to Boston and over $50 million to Cambridge in addition to the documented PILOT payments." Unfair forcing Harvard to pay any taxes at all. Operating under the Obama-Holder doctrine, Veritas College can legally ignore inconvenient laws. Stop taxing Harvard, the most moral, giving, altruistic institution in America. There is no benefit to Harvard being in Cambridge. Councilor McGovern justifies taking Harvard's money. College administrators know how to spend other people's money more appropriately than politicians.

[From article]

Clearly Cambridge benefits from having Harvard, MIT, and Lesley in our city. But those universities also benefit from being here,” said Mark McGovern, a Cambridge city councilor.
[. . .]
“This is a constant tension of whether or not our nonprofit universities are carrying their weight in utilization of city services,” [Councilor] Cheung said.

http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2014/10/30/harvard-defends-pilot-contributions/

Officials Defend Harvard's Payments to Local Governments
By CHRISTINE Y. CAHILL and AMNA H. HASHMI, 

Harvard CRIMSON STAFF WRITERS
October 29,2014
UPDATED: October 30, 2014, at 1:20 a.m.

NYC Mayor Makes High Cost of Living Higher

[From article]
A recent New York Times story, summing up research on urban income differences, noted that income inequality “is closely tied with the availability of affordable housing.” Places where housing becomes very expensive, the report observed, tend to hemorrhage middle-class residents and instead become communities made up primarily of the rich, who can afford stratospheric housing prices, and the poor, who can get government housing subsidies.
[. . .]
Average pay in Manhattan for a financial-services job is now $246,000 annually; in New Jersey, the securities industry is more of an upper-middle-income business, with average pay at $97,600 annually.
[. . .]
A recent World Bank report noted that a would-be entrepreneur needs to obtain six permits, on average, to start a new venture in the United States (compared with just one in business-friendly New Zealand). But according to NYC Business Express, he’d need ten—six local and four from the state—to open, say, a simple office-supply business in the city.

[. . .]

city officials fought among themselves and with neighborhood business groups over plans by the Pathmark supermarket chain to open an outlet in East Harlem, which had lacked a major supermarket since the 1960s, despite the $3 billion or so annually that its residents spent on food. That Pathmark couldn’t open “as-of-right”—that it needed to win the support of politicians before it could operate—illustrates why New York, one of America’s densest cities, is still underserved in key business categories such as food retailing. A 2009 study by the Bloomberg administration estimated that New York needed 100 more supermarkets to serve its residents adequately and was losing $1 billion in sales a year as shoppers left the city to buy food.

[. . .]
Mayor de Blasio’s policies will only make New York more expensive and unequal.
[. . .]
the city’s new progressive coalition of city council members, most with zero private-sector experience,
[. . .]
council members have so little regard for businesses—especially small minority operators
[. . .]
The city should lower its regressive local-sales levy
[. . .]
What de Blasio doesn’t seem to recall is that the Charles Dickens novel he invokes is foremost a tale about the damage that a coercive government does to its own people.

http://www.city-journal.org/2014/24_3_nyc-government.html

STEVEN MALANGA
The Cost of New York
Government overreach is to blame for Bill de Blasio’s tale of two cities.
Summer 2014

Cambridge City Manager Is Very Well Paid

Robert Healy, Cambridge City Manager 

Property tax exemptions for universities and other not for profit corporations do not extend to for profit uses. There are abuses but in Cambridge the outgoing City Manager "negotiated " agreements with Harvard and MIT for PILOTs which last for up to 50 years. In addition if the City petitions for eliminating the tax exemption, the agreements are void. The City Manager negotiated away rights of the city to petition the state legislature. Like much of what Cambridge City government does it is of questionable legality.   

http://wgbhnews.org/post/cambridge-city-manager-has-well-paid-graying-company-misunderstood-job

Cambridge City Manager Has Well Paid, Graying Company in Misunderstood Job
6:00 AM WED APRIL 3, 2013
By JAMES EDWARDS

Harvard's Tax Exemption And Candidate Warren

In addition to the misadventures mentioned herein, Harvard Law School enjoys a tax exemption from city property taxes. If law professors use their offices for "for profit" activities that negates the tax exemption. Though I've spoken publicly about this several times before the Cambridge MA City Council there was no effort to end any such abuses by law professors or others using tax exempt property for profit-making activities. It is one of many unlawful activities found on the Harvard University campus. Their faculty and students become accustomed to violating local, state and US laws with no penalties. Thus Mr. Obama and Mr. Holder with a little help from their friends. 

[From article]
Elizabeth Warren [. . .] practiced law for years in Massachusetts out of her law school office

http://www.americanthinker.com/2012/09/on_the_road_to_benghazi.html

September 30, 2012
On the Road to Benghazi
American Thinker

Harvard Sells Watertown Arsenal

That purchase provoked a state law to compensate cities and towns
which lost more than a percentage of their tax base to be reimbursed
by the non profit taking the property off the tax rolls. Harvard's
agreement with Watertown was for about $50 million over a period of
time. Watertown got more money than Harvard gives to Cambridge.

http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2012/12/5/sell-arsenal-charles-watertown/

University To Sell Arsenal on the Charles
By SAMUEL Y. WEINSTOCK,
Harvard CRIMSON STAFF WRITER
Published: Wednesday, December 05, 2012

Harvard's Tax Exemption and Candidate Warren

In addition to the misadventures mentioned herein, Harvard Law School enjoys a tax exemption from city property taxes. If law professors use their offices for "for profit" activities that negates the tax exemption. Though I've spoken publicly about this several times before the Cambridge MA City Council there was no effort to end any such abuses by law professors or others using tax exempt property for profit-making activities. It is one of many unlawful activities found on the Harvard University campus. Their faculty and students become accustomed to violating local, state and US laws with no penalties. Thus Mr. Obama and Mr. Holder with a little help from their friends. 

[From article]
Elizabeth Warren [. . .] practiced law for years in Massachusetts out of her law school office 

http://www.americanthinker.com/2012/09/on_the_road_to_benghazi.html September 30, 2012

On the Road to Benghazi
American Thinker
by Clarice Feldman
September 30, 2012

Cambridge Corporate Taxpayers

http://www.wickedlocal.com/cambridge/news/x1018079688/Top-taxpayers-in-Cambridge-MIT-Boston-Properties-in-top-10#axzz1twK78JDq

Top taxpayers in Cambridge: MIT, Boston Properties in top 10
By Andy Metzger/ametzger (at) wickedlocal.com
Cambridge Chronicle
Posted May 03, 2012 @ 04:18 PM

US Law Requires Universities to Reveal Conflicts of Interest

Even with disclosure of any conflicts of interest how does this policy requirement of US law address the use of taxpayer funds for private profit? Are the standards of the NFL and Solyndra being imported into the university now? When private for profit activities take place on campus how does that affect the property tax exemption. I know it does not matter in Cambridge where laws are optional but for the rest of humanity.

http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2012/2/8/harvard-revising-coi-policies/

Harvard COI Policies Being Revised
By Radhika Jain and Kevin J. Wu,
Harvard CRIMSON STAFF WRITERS
Published: Wednesday, February 08, 2012

New Perspective From Council Candidate

"Marquardt [. . .] says he feels that fresh leadership and new perspectives will help move the city forward [and] the change needs to respect the different cultures that pervade Cambridge’s neighborhoods." Cambridge like Harvard is as diverse as can be, including ensuring that all different cultures think alike, and excluding persons with disabilities from full participation. "Marquardt hopes to look to the universities for better planning in city council, mimicking the academic process of making long-term plans." The City already mimicks Harvard increasing salaries of City Manager and Deputy Managers above any reasonable amount and raising taxes (like tuition) for those who pay the salaries. "He believes if the universities offered more graduate housing, the middle class families might be able to afford to live in Cambridge." Housing restricted to university affiliates is segregated housing, and eliminates potential land use for "affordable housing" whatever that is. Cambridge is no longer a city for "the Middle Class" whatever that is. Cambridge is now an elite academic enclave with low income taxpayer subsidized ghettos for poor uneducated people to keep the police busy.

http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2011/10/31/charles-marquardt-council-election/

Candidate Profile: Charles W. Marquardt
By Julia K. Dean, CONTRIBUTING WRITER
Harvard Crimson
Published: Monday, October 31, 2011

Harvard Exploits Tax Exemption With No Jeopardy

About using Facebook and email during class, "Students and professors seem to accept this as a routine part of Harvard life.
[. . .]
Their professors are leaders in their fields and senior advisers to governments and corporations."
Has this too become a routine part of Harvard life? Using tax exempt property for for profit enterprises contrary to law? A recent article about US Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren revealed she was doing consulting work too.


[From article]
"Students and professors seem to accept this as a routine part of Harvard life.
[. . .]
Their professors are leaders in their fields and senior advisers to governments and corporations."


http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2011/10/24/facebook-class-phenomenon/

Combating the Facebook Index
By Hemi H. Gandhi,
Harvard CRIMSON STAFF WRITER
Published: Monday, October 24, 2011

US Attorney General Did Not Pay Taxes

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/queens/holder_tax_lax_ZLrjDOZehZHon7fDakSwTL

Holder's 4G tax lax
Snafu in ma's Queens estate
By ISABEL VINCENT and MELISSA KLEIN
New York Post
Last Updated: 1:54 AM, April 19, 2011
Posted: 3:18 AM, April 17, 2011

Landlords Pass Property Tax Increases to Tenants.

The state may charge the landlord property taxes, but the tenant pays it through rent.

[From article]
"Silver's conference is dominated by a left-of-center leadership from poor and heavily Democratic New York City districts [. . .] where plans to cap local property taxes mean nothing -- since nobody but landlords pay them anyway."

Read more: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/opedcolumnists/will_silver_lead_Ej707RjHmCuJDsHooDZSrN#ixzz17Qpyu01i


http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/opedcolumnists/will_silver_lead_Ej707RjHmCuJDsHooDZSrN

Will Silver lead?
Speaker's 'consensus' v. Cuomo
Frederic U. Dicker
New York Post
Last Updated: 7:21 AM, December 6, 2010
Posted: 10:41 PM, December 5, 2010

Bloomberg Aide Lists NY and FL and Home

 

The exemption is granted based on paperwork, which Post and her husband provided in the form of Florida driver's licenses, as well as Palm Beach County voter-registration cards, all while she was employed in the Bloomberg administration.

A Palm Beach County election official said Post still has an open registration in Florida, although she voted in Manhattan in 2008.
A press release issued by the mayor's office when she was appointed said she and her husband reside in New York.

A shady deal in the sun

Mike aide's tax break on Fla. home

By SALLY GOLDENBERG

New York Post

Last Updated: 9:51 AM, February 4, 2010

Posted: 3:57 AM, February 4, 2010

Passaic County New Jersey Highest Property Taxes


"The worst proportional tax bite in the nation falls on New Jersey's Passaic County."
The average homeowner there has an annual income of $85,088 and pays $7,095 a year in real-estate taxes.
The tax comes to 8.34 percent of income.
This means Passaic residents are paying the taxman about one out of every $12 they earn for the pleasure of owning a home."

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/prop_taxes_slam_ny_area_hardest_80jxq1MSndVKJhgkvrhnSO

Prop taxes slam NY area hardest
By ANDY SOLTIS
New York Post
Last Updated: 6:06 AM, October 29, 2009
Posted: 3:08 AM, October 29, 2009

Case Against US Rep. Rangel

Case Against US Rep. Rangel

Brigitte Stelz

Publish Post

er / Splash News

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/opedcolumnists/charlie_sins_sHX1059NlNgb3lSdZFRecO

Charlie's sins
Ousting Rangel: a damning case
New York Post
Last Updated: 8:39 AM, October 8, 2009
Posted: 12:55 AM, October 8, 2009

City Manager's Fantasies About to Implode


Cambridge MA City Manager often played his trump card, i.e. the city's Triple A Bond rating. In this essay Peter Schweich exposes the negative aspects of this boast, which will soon be a large burden on the city's taxpayers. Not only are the three rating agencies under scrutiny of CA and NY Attorneys General, they are also being sued for fraud. But also the city has a large amount of unfunded obligations which will have to be paid by increased property taxes.

http://www.wickedlocal.com/cambridge/news/x576530389/Guest-commentary-Cambridge-runs-amok

[Also at Forbes.com]
http://www.forbes.com/2009/09/30/cambridge-massachusetts-opeb-pensions-ratings-opinions-contributors-peter-schweich.html

Guest commentary: Cambridge runs amok
By Peter Schweich
Cambridge Chronicle
Posted Oct 01, 2009 @ 05:59 AM