PROVIDENCE –– General Assembly leaders are considering a plan to strip tax-exempt status from approximately 6,600 nonprofit organizations –– churches, hospitals,private universities, YMCAs and even parent-teacher associations –– to help fix Rhode Island government’s ballooning budget problems.

As is the case in states across the country, Ocean State law allows most nonprofits to avoid paying the state’s 7-percent sales tax. That saves tens of millions of dollars each year on purchases of office supplies, computer equipment and construction materials for organizations legally prohibited from turning a profit.

read it here