Now some readers might say
that our blog just harps on the negative side of the UCLA hotel proposal and never
offers anything positive. That isn’t
really true since we did offer a realistic alternative to the proposal until
UCLA got the donors to write a letter saying it was the hotel or nothing. So – searching for a solution - we continued
our internet exploration and have found a way out for UCLA, courtesy of the
University of Wisconsin.
The University of
Wisconsin, like Stanford, has posted online guidance on the tax issue. But Wisconsin provides the one example in
which a university hotel can take the kind of business UCLA proposes and yet
not be taxable. Below in italics is the
example from Wisconsin for a hypothetical university hotel that could be
nontaxable:
A University receives an off-campus restaurant as
a gift. The restaurant is managed and
operated by students in Hotel/Restaurant Management. (Not taxable because
contributes importantly to the educational mission.)
So there you have it. All UCLA needs to do is create a new School of
Hotel Management and degree and use only hotel school students (free labor!!) to staff
the proposed hotel for college credit!
Of course, any such school
and degree program will need Academic Senate and Regents approval before the
September Regents meeting where the final approval for the hotel project is to
be on the agenda. But since the Regents
are in a mood now to approve anything related to the hotel, getting a rubber
stamp approval for a new school should be no problem. And since UCLA’s administration likes to say
that the Academic Senate is just fine with the hotel plan, the powers-that-be
on campus shouldn’t have any problem getting quick Senate approval for the new Hotel Bachelor of Management
(HOT-BM) degree.
Such a simple idea! I know you're asking:
Seriously, folks, when the September Regents meeting rolls around, check to see if there is presented any solution to the tax problem.
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