Taxes, Charity and the Downtown YMCA

As legal counsel for the Downtown YMCA, I would like to correct a fundamental misconception advanced by the private health clubs that appears in the article published June 24, relating to the tax exemption of the Downtown YMCA. The private clubs are operating on the assumption that charitable activities can only be directed to the poor and needy. On the contrary, the term charity has been broadly construed in the State of California. In a case upholding the YMCA’s entitlement to a property tax exemption, the California Supreme Court held that “charity is not confined solely to the relief of the needy and destitute, but comprehends as well activities which are humanitarian in nature and rendered for the general improvement and betterment of mankind. . . .” Therefore, the YMCA’s mission of promoting wellness through the development of body, mind and spirit has always qualified as a charitable purpose in California.

Moreover, it is inaccurate for the private health clubs to state that the YMCA is being given an unfair advantage by being tax-exempt. The YMCA provides many programs and services that private clubs to not offer, and the revenues derived from these operations are used to provide public services. If the private clubs wished, they also could become tax-exempt by adding similar public service programs; by electing to convert from for-profit to nonprofit corporations under the California Corporations Code (this, in effect, would prevent the distribution of profits to the private shareholders of these clubs), and by complying with the other requirements of the welfare exemption.

ALBERT R. RODRIGUEZ

Los Angeles