May 31, 2001 | Read Time: 1 minute
By ELIZABETH SCHWINN
The Treasury Department has decided not to prepare a report that members of Congress had requested on competition between for-profit and nonprofit health and fitness organizations. The department told the House Small Business Committee that the agency believes current tax laws sufficiently regulate such competition.
Congress asked the Treasury Department for the report three years ago, and the House recently renewed its request.
But Mark A. Weinberger, the agency’s assistant secretary for tax policy, responded to the request by saying that the Internal Revenue Service’s current standards are appropriate, and that the agency has no legislative recommendations.
Mr. Weinberger suggested that for further clarification the committee should consult a training manual for tax agents that the I.R.S. published last year. The manual for the first time gave agents directions on how to determine when a charity’s health and fitness services fall outside its mission and are subject to unrelated-business income tax.
The chapter of the manual related to health clubs is available at: http://www.irs.gov/prod/bus_info/eo/topica00.pdf.
