View Research by Author - Marion R. Fremont-Smith

Publications

In June 2004, the Senate Finance Committee Staff circulated draft proposals to improve regulation of charities and requested comments from a number of experts in nonprofit law. In her response, Marion R. Fremont-Smith, Hauser Center for Nonprofit Organizations at Harvard, supported proposals to extend existing limitations and increase disclosure requirement. She urged caution before adopting proposals to expand the role of the IRS from its traditional one of protecting the integrity of the tax system to that of policing the internal practices of exempt organizations, and she strongly favored increasing information sharing between federal and state regulators, while opposing a suggestion to give enforcement powers to private individuals.

Contrary to some public perceptions, most of the wealth in the nonprofit sector is not in the hands of private foundations. It is instead held by service-providing organizations, notably hospitals and related health care organizations, together with colleges and universities. However, wealth of individual organizations varies greatly. Some colleges and universities have endowments in the billions while others have little or no permanent funds. Can there be too much wealth in the nonprofit sector and, if so, what should we do about it? This brief reports on a discussion from the sixth Emerging Issues Seminar of these issues, including current trends and mechanisms proposed to control wealth.

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