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Run A Museum, Live Rent-Free In Multi-Million Dollar Apts.
By
Jaya Saxena
Published Aug 10, 2010
Modified Aug 10, 2010
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By
Jaya Saxena
Published Aug 10, 2010
Modified Aug 10, 2010
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Looks like some of the city's museums might not be struggling as much as we thought. The Times reports that even though the Met is suggesting you pay $20 for admission, museum director Thomas P. Campbell is living in a rent free, $4 million co-op on Fifth Avenue owned by the museum. The Director of the Museum of Modern Art, Glenn D. Lowry, lives in a $6 million condo on top of the museum, and Ellen V. Futter, president of the American Museum of Natural History, lives rent free in a $5 million apartment on the East Side. Oh, and nobody pays income taxes on the properties, because they are required to live on "business premises."
The museum boards say it doesn't matter that the apartments (which we'll just assume are bigger and more beautiful than anywhere we'll ever set foot in) aren't actually on museum grounds, because they get used for business "meetings." But Daniel S. Goldberg, a law professor at the University of Maryland says, "It’s difficult to successfully argue one of these because they seem to stretch the purpose of the ‘business premises’ exclusion in the tax code." By the way, the J. Paul Getty Museum, Carnegie Hall, the Wildlife Conservation Society and the Morgan Library & Museum all treat their heads to taxable housing. We'd settle for that if we had to.
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free apartment
museums
real estate
tax code
tax free apartment
Jaya Saxena
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