Housing for Museum Chiefs Attracts Notice

The front page of the New York Times for August 10 carries a story about what it describes as tax-free “luxury” housing for museum chiefs.  The article focuses on the question of whether the housing properly meets the tests that the housing be on the “business premises” and the employee is required to live there.   According to the article, the museums say their CEO’s situations are similar to those of university presidents.  The article notes that housing for the museum chiefs is generally not on the premises of the museum itself, but in separate apartment buildings, though one, the Museum of Modern Art, has a residential tower on top of the building so the CEO’s apartment is literally an elevator ride away from his office.  The article further notes the wide range of practices among nonprofits – at one extreme, the Morgan Library charges its director rent on his apartment and reports the difference between market rent and what he is charged as income on his W-2.  As of the time of this posting, a link to the article was not yet available at the Times’ web site but we’d expect it can be found soon at nytimes.com.

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