Tacoma Council Axes Hospitals' Tax Break

The Tacoma, Wash., City Council agreed unanimously Tuesday to cancel a tax break for Tacoma’s nonprofit hospitals and charge drivers a $20 license-tab fee to help the financially strapped city government. The city expects to raise about $5.5 million in 2013-14 by eliminating the tax exemption, which the council already had scaled back in February from a total to a partial break. Smaller health care nonprofits will remain fully exempt, but nonprofits with annual gross income of at least $30 million will pay the full rate, four times what they pay now.