Boston hospitals not paying fair share, group says

Boston's major hospitals could and should play a significant role in easing the city's budget crisis, according to a new report by Community Labor United, a coalition of union and activist groups. The group found that the institutions pay only a fraction of the cost of providing police, fire, and other services to the $2.4 billion in property the tax-exempt charities own. Community Labor United said that the city's eight biggest teaching hospitals would have owed $64.2 million in city taxes in 2007 if their land and buildings had been taxed like commercial property. Instead, the hospitals made $4 million in voluntary payments to the city in 2007, a year when they collectively had profits of more than $750 million.