“Silencing Cuba's Music: A Look At Cuban Cultural Exchange - Deseret News” plus 1 more |
| Silencing Cuba's Music: A Look At Cuban Cultural Exchange - Deseret News Posted: 09 Feb 2011 08:43 PM PST [fivefilters.org: unable to retrieve full-text content] Grammy award-winning pianist, composer and bandleader Arturo O'Farrill kicked back at his home in Brooklyn recently to reflect on his recent trip to Cuba and the effects of the U.S. embargo upon musicians in both countries. He went to Cuba to perform with ... |
| State's top court to decide Cultural Trust tax liability - Pittsburgh Tribune-Review Posted: 09 Feb 2011 05:44 PM PST The state Supreme Court will hear a case that will decide whether the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust must pay local real estate taxes on two Downtown properties it owns but has not developed. The case is being watched by nonprofits as another attempt by the city to obtain revenue from them. One-third of property in the city is tax-exempt, costing the city $70 million a year in potential real estate income, according to City Council's 2011 budget proposal. At the same time, the city faces a shrinking tax base, a pension fund that is about 70 percent underfunded and rising workers' compensation and health care costs. "There is this pattern of challenging the right-to-tax exemption that we have been seeing for several years," said Peggy M. Outon, executive director of the Bayer Center for Nonprofit Management at Robert Morris University. She was referring to a city campaign to get payments in lieu of taxes from nonprofit groups and an aborted attempt by Mayor Luke Ravenstahl to tax college tuition. The dispute with the Cultural Trust arose in 2008 when the city appealed an order of Allegheny Common Pleas Court exempting the properties at 820 Liberty Ave. and 110 Ninth St. from local real estate taxes. The Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania, however, overturned that decision in 2009 and ruled the properties subject to real estate taxes. The state Supreme Court announced this week that it would hear the trust's appeal of the Commonwealth Court decision. "The Trust serves the community by sustaining and creating a vibrant Downtown Cultural District, and that encompasses residential properties, retail businesses, restaurants and arts facilities," spokeswoman Veronica Corpuz said. "And so, hopefully, with this appeal, the decision-makers will champion the multifaceted work and mission of the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust." The Cultural Trust uses the ground floor of its five-story building on Liberty as an art gallery 24 weeks a year for Carnegie Mellon students in the master of fine arts program. It is among the locations for gallery "crawls" -- or tours -- four times a year. Its vacant, five-story building on Ninth Street was supposed to be demolished for a riverfront, mixed-use development along Fort Duquesne Boulevard up to Penn Avenue. Corpuz said that work has been placed on hold until financial markets improve, but that the Trust is "absolutely committed" to it. "The city position is that these properties are not being used for a charitable purpose and, therefore, should not be granted tax-exempt status," solicitor Dan Regan said. Some nonprofit agencies choose not to seek exemptions on land they hold for development. The Bloomfield-Garfield Corporation, a neighborhood revitalization group, is one of them. It pays about $50,000 a year in real estate taxes. "Why should we get a free pass?" said Rick Swartz, the group's executive director. "I would say to the Cultural Trust, if you're not able to pay the holding cost while you're trying to put together a development plan for that site, then find someone who can pay the property taxes." This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service — if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read our FAQ page at fivefilters.org/content-only/faq.php |
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