Harvard Report Finds Easier Legal Path for Non-Profit Newspapers

By: Joe Strupp Non-profit newspapers could qualify for tax exemptions without new congressional legislation or IRS changes, according to a report issued Monday by the Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy at Harvard University.

An announcement of the findings that address converting newspapers to non-profit status states: "the law and IRS rulings are already in place to allow such conversions, and ... current efforts at new legislation are unnecessary."

The report is the work of Marion R. Fremont-Smith, a senior research fellow at the Hauser Center for Nonprofit Organizations at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government and a lecturer in law at Harvard Law School.

"We believe that Marion Fremont-Smith's analysis has opened the door to creation of nonprofit newspapers, without having to wait on Congress or the IRS to act," Alex S. Jones, director of the Shorenstein Center, said in a statement. "We feel her work is not only authoritative, but revolutionary in its view, and extremely timely."

The report can be found here.