Below are the first couple paragraphs of today’s online CHRONICLE OF HIGHER EDUCATION article about a story getting a lot of play in serious media, about the challenge to the tax exempt status of donations made to university and college athletics. The Senator making this challenge is a mainstream Republican, one with a record of working on both sides of the aisle to get things done. This may or may not advance, but it certainly is part of the growing trend toward questioning how much athletic priorities set the agenda for so much of higher education across the nation.
By BRAD WOLVERTON from the CHRONCILE OF HIGHER EDUCATION online edition Sept. 26, 2007.
The senior Republican on the U.S. Senate Finance Committee plans to expand an investigation into the tax-exempt status of college sports, reopening a debate about whether donors should receive a tax deduction for contributing to athletics departments.
In an interview on Tuesday, an aide to Sen. Charles E. Grassley, Republican of Iowa, said the senator plans to question the Internal Revenue Service about the tax status of booster clubs and athletics programs and “what gives the IRS comfort that they have met the requirements of being a charity.”
