when was the world tourism organization founded

UNWTO – The World Tourism Organization

The World Tourism Organisation  is a united nations agency which is responsible for the development and promotion of tourism at the world level.

The World Tourism Organisation needs its beginnings as the International Congress of Official Tourist Traffic Associations set up in 1925 in the Haghe. In 1934 International Union of Official Tourist Propaganda organization (IUOTOP) was created. However, it was renamed as the International Union of Official Travel Organisation (IUOTO) after World War 2nd in Geneva.

IUOTO was a technical, non-government organization, whose membership at its peak included 109 National Tourist Organisation (NTOs) and 88 associated members, among them private and public sector organizations.

With passes of time as tourism grew and became an integral part of the fabric of modern life, its international dimensions increased and national Governments started to play significant as well as a proactive role in tourism activities such as infrastructure development.

During the 1960s. It was recognized that there is a need for tourists’ development of international, regional, and national levels, and to keep to the peace of tourist development, specialized inter-Governmental machinery is required. That is why in 1967 IUOTO members called for its transformation into an intergovernmental body empowered to deal on a worldwide basis with all matters concerning tourists and cooperated with other international bodies.

In 1970, on the 27th Sept. IUOTO’s Extraordinary General Assembly adopted the statutes of the World Tourism Organisation in Mexico. Thus, IUOTO became the World Tourism Organisation and its first General Assembly was held in Madrid in May 1975 . The Secretariat was installed in Madrid and the Spanish Government provided the initial infrastructure.

In 1979, World Tourism Day created, to be celebrated every year on 27th September. Since the inception of UNWTO, it has been playing a pivotal role in the field of travel and tourism.

In fact, UNWTO is acting as an umbrella organization, and plays a catalytic role in promoting technological transfers and international cooperation, stimulating and developing public-private sector partnership, encouraging the implementation of the Global Code of ethics for tourism, maximizes the possible economical-social, cultural impact of tourism and minimize its negative social, cultural and environmental impact.

To further strengthen its overall role in tourism, UNWTO was converted into a specialized agency of the United Nations.

Aims & Objective of UNWTO

Through tourism , UNWTO aims at stimulating economic growth and job creation, providing incentives, protecting the environment, and cultural heritage, promoting peace, prosperity, and respect for rights. The UNWTO’s main missions/aims are as:

• To create employment opportunities.
• To improve international understanding and contribute peace among all the nations of the world.
• To create intercultural awareness and personal friendships.
• To promote and develop responsible, sustainable , and universally accessible tourism.
• To stimulate and develop responsible, sustainable, and universally accessible tourism.
• To stimulate and develop public-private sector partnerships.
• To develop and encourage the implementation of the Global Code of ethics for travel and tourism.
• To help in equalization in Economic opportunities.
• To coordinate and cooperate with the other international Agencies in tourism promotion and development.
• To focus on destination development.
• To promote the use of information technology.
• To develop Human Resources.
• To promote and spread the message of peace, harmony through quality educations and training.
• To develop a conceptional framework for tourism an encourage to use.

Membership of UNWTO

In 2003 UNWTO membership reached 141 countries, seven territories, and 360 affiliate members representing the private sector educational institutions, tourism associations and local tourism bodies. The UNWTO has three categories of membership:

Full Member

• Associate Member
• Affiliated Member

It is opened to all Sovereign states. At present, full members are 141 countries. India is the founder member of UNWTO.

Associate Members

This type of membership is opened to all territories not responsible for their external relations. The membership requires the prior approval of the Government which assumes responsibility for their external relations. At present seven territories are associated members.

Affiliate Members

Affiliate membership comprises a wide range of organizations and companies working directly in travel, tourism, and related sectors. These may include airlines, cruises, transport, hotels, resorts, restaurants, tour operators , travel agents , banking institutions, insurance companies, and other travel-related organizations. Moreover, the affiliate members made up of three groups namely:

• The UNWTO Business Council
• The UNWTO Education Council
• The UNWTO Task Force in Destination Management

The affiliate membership requires endorsement by the government of the state in which the headquarters of the applicant is located.

The UNWTO is the only inter-governmental organization that offers membership to the operational sector and in this way offers a unique contact point for discussion between government officials and industry leaders. UNWTO broad-based afflicted membership also has its own programmes of activities which includes, regular meetings, seminars, workshops, the conference on the specific topic such as e-business for tourism, and public-private sector cooperation and partnership.

Organizational Structure of UNWTO

UNWTO administration is carried out under a secretary-general, executive council, regional commission, committees, and secretariat, etc. The overall control and management of UNWTO lie with the General Assembly, which takes place every year. Thus, the bodies and organizational structure of UNWTO follows as:

General Assembly

It is the supreme and principal body of UNWTO . The General Assembly is composed of members and associate members, whereas affiliate members and representations of other international organizations can participate as observers. Every four years it elects a Secretary-General. General Assembly meets every year to approve the budget and program of work and to debate topics of vital importance to the tourism sector.

Executive Council

It is important for the smooth working of UNWTO. In fact, the Executive Council is a Governing board of UNWTO, is responsible for ensuring that the organization carried out its functions to achieve goals/objectives. The board meets twice a year and is composed of 27 members elected in the general assembly in a ratio of one for every five full members.

Spain has a permanent seat on the executive council as a host country of UNWTO’s headquarters. Further, representatives of associate and affiliate members participate in Executive council meetings as observers.

Regional Commissions

Strengthen and support the efforts carried out by the National Tourism administration, UNWTO has established a regional commission. At present, UNWTO has six regional commission – Africa, the Americas, East Asia and the Pacific, Europe, the Middle East, and South Asia.

Each region receives special attention from its regional representative based at the headquarter in Madrid. The commissions meat at least a year and are composed of all the full, associate members from the region and affiliate members from the region participate as an observer. In the special effort to help boost tourism to Sub-Saharan Africa, UNWTO has developed a specific program of technical activities for the years 2003-04.

Committees of UNWTO

UNWTO has appointed various committees of Full, Associate and affiliated members to advice UNWTO administration and to achieve its mission, these committees are:

• Programme Committee
• Budget and Finance Committee
• Statistic and micro-economical analysis of tourism Committee
• The quality support Committee
• Education Council
• Business Council
• Sustainable development of the Tourism Committee
• Tourism Ethics Committee

Secretariat of UNWTO

Secretariat is the hierarchy of authority and responsibility through which UNWTO works. It tells us who is responsible for what. The UNWTO Secretariat is led by Secretary-General, these officers are responsible for implementing UNWTO programs. The UNWTO Business Council is head by a full-time chief executive and is supported by the Regional Commission and Committee.

Role and Contribution of UNWTO

At the beginning of the new millennium, tourism has firmly established as the number one industry in most of the counties of the world. For more than a dozen countries, tourism is the fastest-growing economic sector in terms of foreign exchange earnings, job creation, and an important factor in the balance of payment.

UNWTO has been playing an increasingly important role to make tourism as a number one industry at global, regional, and national levels. Since its inception i.e. from 1924 UNWTO has taken various initiatives to promote and develop tourism in a systematic and scientific way such as:

• Develop intercultural awareness and personal friendship.
• Encourage investment in tourism.
• Help in equalize economic opportunities.
• Develop international understanding and peace.
• Regional development.
• Develop sustainable and responsible tourism.
• Cooperate and coordinate with international agencies for tourism development.
• Provide leadership, and quality education.
• Destination development and management.
• Promote technology.
• Develop statistical measurement.
• Develop ethics and social responsibility.

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World Tourism Organization (UN Tourism)

World Tourism Organization  (UN Tourism)

• 1946: International Union of Official Travel ‎Organisations (IUOTO) established in 1946
• 1970: IUOTO adopts  Statutes of the World Tourism Organization
• A/RES/58/232 of 23 December 2003
• Meets every 2 years
• Regional Commissions
• Executive Council
• UNWTO Tourism Highlights
• Annual report highlights activities of UNWTO
• Tourism Conventions
• 2018-:  Zurab Pololikashvili (Georgia)
• 2010-2017:  Taleb D. Rifai (Jordan)
• 1998-2009: ‎ Francesco Frangialli (France)
• 1990-1997: Antonio Enríquez Savignac (Mexico)
• 1986-1989:  Willibald Pahr (Austria)
• 1957-1985: Robert C. Lonati (France)
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• Regional Support Office for Asia and the Pacific (RSOAP)
• Member States in Asia and the Pacific
• SUSTAINABLE TOURISM OBSERVATORIES (INSTO)

UN Tourism’s (formerly UNWTO) leadership vision acknowledges the most pressing challenges facing tourism and identifies the sector’s ability to overcome them and to drive wider positive change, including the opportunities responsible tourism offers for the advancement of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

UN Tourism’s members have endorsed the Management Vision of the Secretary-General which seeks to position tourism as a policy priority, lead in knowledge creation, enhance the Organization’s capacity through building new and stronger partnerships, and offer better value for existing Members while also expanding membership.

To realize the Management’s Vision, UN Tourism’s work is based around five distinct pillars:

• making tourism smarter through celebrating innovation and leading the digital transformation of the sector
• making tourism more competitive at every level through promoting investment and promoting entrepreneurship
• creating more and better jobs and providing relevant training
• building resilience and promoting safe and seamless travel;
• harnessing tourism’s unique potential to protect cultural and natural heritage and to support communities both economically and socially.

As the leading international organization in the field of tourism, UNWTO (now, UN TOURISM) promotes tourism as a driver of economic growth, inclusive development and environmental sustainability and offers leadership and support to the sector in advancing knowledge and tourism policies worldwide.

UN Tourism encourages the implementation of the Global Code of Ethics for Tourism, to maximize tourism’s socio-economic contribution while minimizing its possible negative impacts, and is committed to promoting tourism as an instrument in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), geared towards reducing poverty and fostering sustainable development worldwide.

UN Tourism generates market knowledge, promotes competitive and sustainable tourism policies and instruments, fosters tourism education and training, and works to make tourism an effective tool for development through technical assistance projects in over 100 countries around the world.

UN Tourism’s membership includes 160 Member States, 6 Associate Members and over 500 Affiliate Members representing the private sector, educational institutions, tourism associations and local tourism authorities.

source： https://www.unwto.org/who-we-are

OUR MANAGEMENT

UN Tourism Secretary-General Zurab Pololikashvili took office in January 2018. Seeking to optimize the efficiency of the Organization, the Secretary-General has introduced a new leadership structure consisting of a Deputy Secretary-General and two Executive Directors, each one overseeing key structural areas and departments of the Organization, for increased efficiency in achieving UNWTO’s goals, including adding value to members, increasing membership and serving the tourism sector as a whole.

The management team works towards a comprehensive vision for development of the tourism sector. This includes positioning tourism as a policy priority, establishing thought leadership in knowledge and policy creation, increasing resources and strengthening UNWTO’s capacity through meaningful partnerships.

Source: https://www.unwto.org/management

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• What Is The Full Form Of UNWTO?

The World Tourism Organization (UNWTO or simply WTO) is a specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) that was established in 1974 in Madrid, Spain. The main goals of the UNWTO are to develop and promote sustainable tourism that contributes to peace, economic development, and universal respect for human rights without distinction based on race, religion, language, and sex. The UNWTO is the leading international organization for tourism, and promotes the industry as a significant contributor to economic growth, while also supporting the advancement of the industry's knowledge and policies. The headquarters of the World Tourism Organization is located in Madrid, Spain, and the official languages of the organization are Arabic, English, French, Russian, and Spanish.

History Of The UNWTO

The origin of the World Tourism Organization dates back to 1925 when the first global congress of official tourist organizations was held in The Hague, Netherlands. The congress continued to meet every year and eventually decided to create an official union, called the International Union of Official Tourist Publicity Organizations (IUOTPO), which was established in 1934. Following the Second World War , the IUOTPO restructured itself and became the International Union of Official Travel Organizations (IUOTO). The primary objective of the IUOTO was to promote tourism while extracting the best out of the industry as a global trade component. In 1967, the IUOTO declared the need to establish a body with the power to work with other international organizations, such as the United Nations.

The IUOTO voted in favor of forming the World Tourism Organization in 1970, and the WTO began to operate on November 1, 1974. In 2003, during the fifteenth general meeting of the WTO in 2003, the WTO and United Nations agreed the WTO would become a specialized agency of the UN. The UNWTO created a World Committee on Tourist Ethics in 2004, and committee members were elected based on professional capabilities instead of national affiliations. The permanent headquarters of the World Committee on Tourist Ethics is located in Rome, Italy.

UNWTO Members

Membership of the World Tourism Organization includes 158 nations, 6 territories, and two permanent observers. The six territories include Madeira, Flemish Community, Macau, Hong Kong, and Puerto Rico, and Aruba, while the two permanent observers are Palestine and the Holy See. Additionally, 17 nations have withdrawn from the UNWTO, at least temporarily, including Canada, Belgium, Bahamas, Bahrain, Kuwait, Honduras, Grenada, Costa Rica, Malaysia, Myanmar, the United Kingdom, and Panama. For example, Canada withdrew in 2003 after Robert Mugabe became the leader of the UNWTO, and Puerto Rico resigned as UNWTO'S associate member. The Netherland Antilles was an associate member of the UNWTO before the constituent country dissolved in 2010. 

Some non-member states include Somalia, the United States, Sweden, Luxembourg, Ireland, Denmark, Barbados, Tonga, Samoa, Singapore, New Zealand, and Liechtenstein. The United Arab Emirates (UAE) rejoined the UNWTO in 2013 after leaving for 26 years. The UNWTO has more than 500 affiliate members representing tourism associations, educational institutions, the private sector, and local tourism authorities.

Organization Structure 

The principal gathering of the organization is the General Assembly, which meets every two years. The Executive Council of the UNWTO is responsible for governing the board and ensuring that it functions and adheres to the budget. The primary function of the Secretariat is to serve the needs of all affiliate members while implementing the organization's program. Additionally, specialized committees advise on program content and management.

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World Tourism Organization

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• First Online: 01 January 2016
• pp 1027–1028
• Cite this reference work entry

• Noel Healy 3 &
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The World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) is the United Nations’ specialized agency, responsible for the promotion of sustainable, responsible, and universally accessible tourism. As the leading international and the only intergovernmental organization in this field, UNWTO promotes tourism as a driver of economic growth, inclusive development , and environmental sustainability. It supports the advancement of tourism practice, policy, and knowledge worldwide by generating market knowledge, promoting competitive and sustainable tourism policies and instruments, and fostering tourism education and training for its members. It also provides the world’s most comprehensive collection of tourism-related statistics , including the regularly issued UNWTO World Tourism Barometer, aimed at monitoring the short-term evolution of international tourism flows (UNWTO (3 April 2014)." href="#ref-CR2357" id="ref-link-section-d23765573e362">n.d. ). Its membership includes 156 countries, 6 territories, 2 permanent observers, and over 400 affiliate members, the latter representing...

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UNWTO 2014 Tourism and the Millennium Development Goals < www.unwto.org > (3 April).

UNWTO 2012 Statutes of the World Tourism Organization. Madrid: World Tourism Organization.

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UNWTO (n.d.) UNWTO World Tourism Barometer < http://mkt.unwto.org/barometer > (3 April 2014).

UNWTO (n.d.) Global Code of Ethics for Tourism < http://ethics.unwto.org/en/content/global-code-ethics-tourism > (3 April 2014).

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Healy, N., Carvao, S. (2016). World Tourism Organization. In: Jafari, J., Xiao, H. (eds) Encyclopedia of Tourism. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-01384-8_413

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United nations world tourism organization (unwto).

Activity Start date ongoing:  Ongoing Activity End date ongoing:  Ongoing Activity:  UNWTO takes charge of the promotion of responsible, sustainable and universally accessible tourism. UNWTOpromotes the value of tourism as a driver of economic growth, inclusive development and environmentalsustainability, and offers leadership and support in advancing knowledge and tourism policies worldwide.Recognizing the UNWTO’s role in promoting the potential of tourism in fighting poverty and achieving the SDGs,the UN General Assembly declared 2017 as the International Year of Sustainable Tourism for Development(IY2017) and as of July 2017, UNWTO features on the DAC/OECD’s list of development assistance organizations.Tourism is included in SDG 14: ‘Conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas and marine resources forsustainable development’ (besides the SDG 8: ‘Promote sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth,full and productive employment and decent work for all and SDG 12: ‘Sustainable Consumption and Production’).Nevertheless, given its cross-cutting nature, it can advance on all 17 SDGs.• In recent years, several capacity-building activities have been carried out by UNWTO and its member states(on a bilateral or regional level) and also with the support of some of the UNWTO Sustainable TourismObservatories in various coastal countries. An example of such a successful project could be the COASTproject (http://www.un.org/depts/los/nippon/documents/Non_recurrent_e_publication_Oceans_final.pdf).• UNWTO pays special attention also to the situation of Small Islands Developing States (SIDS) and to theirchallenges related to the development of a sustainable tourism.• Given the importance attached by UNWTO to the maritime, coastal and inland water tourism, upon theproposal of the Committee on Tourism and Competitiveness, the 22nd General Assembly adopted in China, inSeptember 2017 the definition of “Maritime, coastal and inland water tourism”. The adopted definitions areavailable on this page: http://cf.cdn.unwto.org/sites/all/files/pdf/ctc_definitions_en_web.pdf. Objectives:  Promotion of responsible, sustainable and universally accessible tourism including maritime, coastal and inland water tourism Lead Organization/Partners :  United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) Scope of Activity:  Global Websites:  http://www.un.org/depts/los/nippon/documents/Non_recurrent_e_publication_Oceans_final.pdf http://cf.cdn.unwto.org/sites/all/files/pdf/ctc_definitions_en_web.pdf Activity Start date:  Ongoing Activity End date:  Ongoing Submitted By:  Relevant Stakeholder Relevant Stakeholder:  United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO)

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World Tourism Organization (UNWTO)

Organisation Mondiale du Tourisme (OMT) Organización Mundial del Turismo (OMT) Vsemirnaya Turistskaya Organizatsiya

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URL: https://www.unwto.org/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/unwto-world-tourism-organization Flickr: https://www.flickr.com/photos/unwto/albums Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCZ-Qqxyc_tBqfexz38_UHpA/playlists Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/WorldTourismOrganization Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/unwto

Established as an intergovernmental organization, on entry into force of statutes adopted Sep 1970, Mexico City (Mexico).

Nongovernmental predecessors were International Congress of Official Tourist Traffic Associations -- Congrès international des associations officielles de trafic touristique , founded on May 1925, The Hague (Netherlands), and International Union of Official Tourist Propaganda Organizations (IUOTPO) -- Union internationale des organismes officiels de propagande touristique (UIOOPT) , set up 1934, The Hague, and re-organized, 1947, Paris (France), as International Union of Official Travel Organizations (IUOTO) -- Union internationale des organismes officiels de tourisme (UIOOT) .

Madrid (Spain) headquarters were established 1 Jan 1976, under resolution 2 (I) adopted at first session of General Assembly, May 1975, Madrid. Principles for cooperation and development in the field set out in 'Declaration of Manila on World Tourism' , adopted 27 Sep-10 Oct 1980, and 'Acapulco Document' , adopted 21-27 Aug 1982. 'Tourism Bill of Rights' and 'Tourist Code' adopted 17-26 Sep 1985, Sofia (Bulgaria). 'Global Code of Ethics for Tourism' adopted Oct 1999, Santiago (Chile).

Statutes registered in 'UNTS 1/14403' .

In English originally referred to as WTO ; new acronym 'UNWTO' adopted Dec 2005.

Relationship with F-XF1000 - United Nations System : Under resolution 2529 (XXIV) of 5 Dec 1969, the General Assembly of A-XA3375 - United Nations (UN) concluded an agreement of cooperation and relationship with the future World Tourism Organization and recognized its central and decisive role in the field, in cooperation with the existing mechanism within the United Nations system. UNWTO became a UN related agency in 1977. This role was substantially increased by Committees on Negotiations of ECOSOC and UNWTO, adopted, 6 Jun 2003, Madrid, by UNWTO Council and Jul 2003, Geneva (Switzerland), by ECOSOC. Final agreement later in 2003 by UN and UNWTO General Assemblies. The Organization became a specialized agency of the UN, 23 Dec 2003, pursuant to GA res 58/232.

Promote and develop responsible, sustainable and universally accessible tourism so as to contribute to economic development, international understanding, peace, prosperity and universal respect for, and observance of, human rights and fundamental freedoms for all, without distinction as to race, sex, language or religion. In pursuing these aims, pay particular attention to the interests of developing countries in the field of tourism.

General Assembly (every 2 years); Executive Council (meeting twice a year); Secretariat. Regional Commissions (6), meet at least one a year, and are composed of Full and Associate Members of the relevant region with Affiliate Members from the region participating as observers: K-XM7106 - UNWTO Commission for Africa (CAF) ; K-XM7107 - UNWTO Commission for the Americas (CAM) ; K-XM7108 - UNWTO Commission for East Asia and the Pacific (CAP) ; K-XM7109 - UNWTO Commission for Europe (CEU) ; K-XM7110 - UNWTO Commission for the Middle East (CME) ; K-XM7111 - UNWTO Commission for South Asia (CSA) .

Specialized committees are subsidiary organs of the UNWTO Executive Council, except the World Committee on Tourism Ethics which is a subsidiary organ of the General Assembly: 'World Committee on Tourism Ethics' .

Specialized committees and subsidiary organs of the Executive Council: Programme and budget Committee (PBC); Committee on Statistics and the Tourism Satellite Account; Committee on Tourism and Competitiveness; Committee on Tourism and Sustainability; World Committee on Tourism Ethics; Committee for the Review of Applications for Affiliate Membership.

Councils of Affiliate Members which participate in UNWTO activities, make recommendations to its bodies and carry out studies and seminars in the framework of the UNWTO Programme of Work.

Relations with Inter-Governmental Organizations

Relations with non-governmental organizations, type i classification, type ii classification, un sustainable development goals **.

UN Tourism | Bringing the world closer

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As society progresses, the tourism sector, much like many other sectors, needs to transform to serve as a catalyst for prosperity at a universal scale. Enhancing the well-being of individuals, safeguarding the natural environment, stimulating economic advancement, and fostering international harmony are key goals that are the fundamental essence of UN Tourism. The organization takes on the role of driving a sustainable force that is now central to many economies

"UN tourism is leading the way forward in growing investments into the tourism sector. We serve as the bridge between investors and destinations, and we guide investments where they will have the biggest impact in making tourism more resilient, inclusive and sustainable."

Mr. Zurab Pololikashvili UN Tourism Secretary-General

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* The designations employed in this section of the website do not imply the expression of any opinions whatsoever on the part of the Secretariat of the World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) concerning the legal status of any country, territory, city or area, or of its authorities or concerning the delimitation of its frontiers or boundaries.

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Important global organizations in Tourism and Hospitality

International Travel, Tourism and Hospitality organizations play a major role in advancing the development through the interests of the industry. They provide forums for discussions of common issues, lobby for industry causes, especially those which promote the industry’s interests, and allow members from different parts of the world to network and learn from one another. Nearly all organizations are involved in doing research, providing marketing services and training schemes that are most cost effective when done jointly under an umbrella organization.

• United Nation World Tourism Organization (UNWTO).

The World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) is the United Nations agency responsible for the promotion of responsible, sustainable and universally accessible tourism. As the leading international organization in the field of tourism, UNWTO promotes tourism as a driver of economic growth, inclusive developmentandenvironmental sustainability and offers leadership and support to the sector in advancing knowledge and tourism policies worldwide.

The UNWTO encourages the implementation of the Global Code of Ethics for

Tourism, to maximize tourism’s socio-economic contribution while minimizing its possible negative impacts, and is committed to promoting tourism as an instrument in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), geared towards reducing poverty and fostering sustainable development worldwide.

1.1 Functioning of UNWTO.

The Secretariat is led by Secretary-General Taleb Rifai of Jordan, who supervises about 110 full-time staff at UNWTO’s Madrid Headquarters. The General Assembly is the principal gathering of the World Tourism Organization. It meets every two years to approve the budget and programme of work and to debate topics of vital importance to the tourism sector.  The UNWTO has six regional commissions-Africa, the Americas,

East Asia and the Pacific, Europe, the Middle East and South Asia.    The Executive Council is UNWTO’s governing board, responsible for ensuring that the Organization carries out its work and adheres to its budget.   As host country of UNWTO´s Headquarters, Spain has a permanent seat on the Executive Council.   

Specialized committees of UNWTO Members advise on management and programme content. These include: the Programme and Budget Committee, the Committee on Statistics and the Ttourism Satellite Account, the Committee on Tourism and Competitiveness, the Committee on Tourism and Sustainability, the World

Committee on Tourism Ethics and the Committee for the Review of Applications for Affiliate Membership. 

• World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC).  

 The World Travel & Tourism Council (WTTC) was formed in 1991 by a group of Travel & Tourism CEOs to study the sector’s contribution to economies and job creation.  WTTC is the only global body that brings together all major players in the Travel & Tourism sector (airlines, hotels, cruise, car rental, travel agencies, tour operators, GDS, and technology), enabling them to speak with One Voice to governments and international bodies. 

The WTTC uses empirical evidence to promote awareness of Travel & Tourism’s economic contribution; to expand markets in harmony with the environment; and to reduce barriers to growth. It is important that WTTC has the broadest geographical representation and includes all aspects of the sector, including organizations that provide vital services to Travel & Tourism. With Chief Executives of over 140 of the world’s leading Travel & Tourism companies as its members, the WTTC has a unique mandate and overview on all matters related to Travel & Tourism. 

The body advocates partnership between the public and private sectors, delivering results that match the needs of economies, local and regional authorities, and local communities, with those of business, based on: Governments recognizing Travel & Tourism as a top priority business balancing economics with people, culture and environment a shared pursuit of long-term growth and prosperity.

2.1 Research of WTTC.

• Policy Research .  A range of other research projects focused on issues impacting the Travel & Tourism sector, related to the three strategic priorities of Freedom to Travel, Policies for Growth, and Tourism for Tomorrow.  
• International Air Transport Association (IATA).

The International Air Transport Association (IATA) is the trade association for the world’s airlines, representing some 265 airlines or 83% of total air traffic.  IATA was founded in Havana, Cuba, on 19 April 1945. It is the prime platform for inter-airline cooperation in promoting safe, reliable, secure and economical air services for the benefit of the world’s consumers. The international scheduled air transport industry is more than 100 times larger than it was in 1945.  IATA is led by Alexandre de Juniac, Director General & CEO since September 2016.

At its founding, IATA had 57 members from 31 nations, mostly in Europe and North America. Today it has some 265 members from 117 nations in every part of the globe. The IATA is the successor to the International Air Traffic Association, founded in

The Hague in 1919 – the year of the world’s first international scheduled services.  In April 2017, IATA celebrated 72 years of flying.   

• With over 60 offices worldwide, IATA maintains relationships with governments and other industry stakeholders around the world, advocating on behalf of its members on key industry issues
• Vision. To be the force for value creation and innovation driving a safe, secure and profitable air transport industry that sustainably connects and enriches our world.
• Mission. IATA’s mission is to represent, lead, and serve the airline industry.
• Representing the Airline Industry.

The IATA improves understanding of the air transport industry among decision makers and increases awareness of the benefits that aviation brings to national and global economies. Advocating for the interests of airlines across the globe and stopping unreasonable rules and charges, holding regulators and governments to account, and striving for sensible regulation are four important activities. 

  IATA helps airlines to operate safely, securely, efficiently, and economically under clearly defined rules. Professional support is provided to all industry stakeholders with a wide range of products and expert services.

• IATA Members.

From 57 founding members in 1945, IATA now represents some 265 airlines in over 117 countries. Carrying 83% of the world’s air traffic, IATA members include the world’s leading passenger and cargo airlines. IATA membership is open to airlines operating scheduled and non-scheduled air services that maintain an IATA Operational Safety Audit (IOSA) registration.

• IATA Airline Membership Benefits.

Increasing Communication.

• The IATA Annual General Meeting and World Air Transport Summit bring together representatives from leading international airlines
• IATA helps members gain influence with the travel agent community through the IATA Agency Program  

Providing Key Commercial Services & Training.

• IATA programs help to strengthen the capabilities of aviation industry professionals
• IATA members can receive discounts up to 30% on a number of IATA publications
• International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO).

The International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) is a UN specialized agency, established by States in 1944 to manage the administration and governance of the Convention on International Civil Aviation (Chicago Convention).

ICAO works with the Convention’s 191 Member States and industry groups to reach consensus on international civil aviation Standards and Recommended Practices (SARPs) and policies in support of a safe, efficient, secure, economically sustainable and environmentally responsible civil aviation sector. These SARPs and policies are used by ICAO Member States to ensure that their local civil aviation operations and regulations conform to global norms, which in turn permits more than 100,000 daily flights in aviation’s global network to operate safely and reliably in every region of the world.

In addition to its core work resolving consensus-driven international SARPs and policies among its Member States and industry, and among many other priorities and programmes, ICAO also coordinates assistance and capacity building for States in support of numerous aviation development objectives; produces global plans to coordinate multilateral strategic progress for safety and air navigation; monitors and reports on numerous air transport sector performance metrics; and audits States’ civil aviation oversight capabilities in the areas of safety and security.

• Vision. Achieve the sustainable growth of the global civil aviation system.
• Mission. To serve as the global forum of States for international civil aviation.  ICAO develops policies and Standards, undertakes compliance audits, performs studies and analyses, provides assistance and builds aviation capacity through many other activities and the cooperation of its Member States and stakeholders.
• How ICAO Develops Standards.

The establishment and maintenance of international Standards and Recommended Practices (SARPs), as well as Procedures for Air Navigation (PANS), are fundamental tenets of the Convention on International Civil Aviation (Chicago Convention) and a core aspect of ICAO’s mission and role.

SARPs and PANS are critical to ICAO Member States and other stakeholders, given that they provide the fundamental basis for harmonized global aviation safety and efficiency in the air and on the ground, the worldwide standardization of functional and performance requirements of air navigation facilities and services, and the orderly development of air transport.

The development of SARPs and PANS follows a structured, transparent and multi-staged process – often known as the ICAO “amendment process” or “standardsmaking process” – involving a number of technical and non-technical bodies which are either within the Organization or closely associated with ICAO.

Typically, it takes approximately two years for an initial proposal for a new or improved Standard, Recommended Practice or procedure to be formally adopted or approved for inclusion in an Annex or PANS. Occasionally, this timescale can be expanded or compressed depending on the nature and priority of the proposal under consideration.

• United Federations of Travel Agents’ Associations (UFTAA).

In the 1960s at the dawn of mass tourism, a few tourism professionals with great foresight saw the need of a global umbrella organization for the travel agency industry. By merger of Fédération internationale des agencies de voyages (FIAV) and Universal Organization of Travel Agents’ Associations (UOTAA), the Universal Federation of Travel Agents ‘Associations (UFTAA) was formed on November 22nd 1966 in Rome. Its first President was an Italian, Giuliano Magnoni, later followed by 24 leading personalities from all parts of the world. The federation was later renamed United Federation of Travel Agents´ Associations, still known under the same well-established acronym UFTAA.

As a globally recognized body UFTAA is the longest established negotiating partner with the leading travel and tourism organizations in the world. Of a special importance is the close co-operation with IATA, representing the interest of individual travel agents and as a partner in the IATA-UFTAA Training Programme. Two other organizations with close relationship are the International Hotel and Restaurant Association (IH&RA) and the International Road Union (IRU). Also in areas which are more distanced from the daily worries of travel agents has UFTAA actively been and still is a spokes-person for the agent´s interest. Particularly worth mentioning are the World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) through its Affiliate Member Programme and at various occasions the World Health Organization (WHO), UNESCO, International Chamber of Commerce (ICC), International Forum of Travel and Tourism Advocates (IFTTA) and many more. The high-level contacts have enable UFTAA to assist national associations in their contacts with authorities and also to help individual agencies.

Through its history UFTAA has been a faithful, active and neutral advocate for all associations and independent travel agencies, irrespective of size and location. In the competitive environment of today a neutral umbrella organization like UFTAA is needed more than ever before to defend and promote the interests of travel agencies in their professional work on behalf and for the travelling consumers.

UFTAA gets ready to celebrate its 50 years of successful contribution to the Travel & Tourism Industry. UFTAA offers to its membership the valuable opportunity to be involved with UFTAA’s networking global platform in order to support good health of travel and tourism industry. UFTAA encourages associations; organizations; institutions and individual member agencies in Travel, Tourism and Hospitality industry to get connected via UFTAA. 

5.1 Mission.

UFTAA’s mission is to be an international forum where matters affecting the world travel industry are addressed, representing and defending the interests of incoming and outgoing tour operators, travel and tourism agencies before the governmental bodies, suppliers and other entities of international scope. It also aims at strengthening its members’ image and enhances the world travel and tourism industry and a sustainable tourism.

5.2 Functions of UFTAA.

To comply with its mission, the Confederation develops the following functions:

• To unite and consolidate the Federations of Travel Agents’ National Associations and to globally enhance the   interests of their members      
• To represent the travel agents’ activities before various world-wide bodies, governmental authorities and suppliers 
• To work towards the adoption of measures that will ease travel for the consumer and to offer services to its member federations 
• To offer, as a voluntary mechanism, an arbitration service which assists in solving conflicts resulting from commercial relations for which amicable settlement cannot be reached   
• To organize a world congress of travel agents and other meetings necessary to the exchange and transmission of knowledge.
• International and Hotel and Restaurant Association (IH&RA).

January 1869, 45 Hotelmen met together in Koblenz at Hotel Trier, Germany and decide to create an Alliance between them under the name of All Hotelmen Alliance (AHA) to defend their interest, and they start to grow and get organized. Hotels were from different standards.

April 1921 various Local European, African, Latin, American hotels association met together and decide to merge into a new international Association and it becomes International Hotels Alliance (IHA). 

November 1947, after the end of the second world war and the creation of the United Nations, Hoteliers from International Hotels Alliance met together with The European Aubergistes association and the Asian Innkeepers Association and decide to merge into a large International Association to defend the Private sector worldwide from

Governments, Public sectors, Military etc…and create International Hotels Association (IHA) in London.

The IH&RA is the only international trade association exclusively devoted to promoting and defending the interests of the hotel and restaurant industry worldwide. It is a non-profit organization and is officially recognized by the United Nations. IH&RA monitors and lobbies all international agencies on behalf of the hospitality industry

6.1  Who are its Members?

• International, National and Regional Hotel and/or Restaurant Associations
• International and National Hotel and/or Restaurant Chains 
• Owners, Developers and Investors
• Individual Hotels and Restaurants
• Institutions of the Industry (hotel schools, educational centers, universities)
• Students / Independent Hoteliers and Restaurateurs

6.2  What Does IH&RA Do?

• Monitor issues that are raised by major international organizations involved in tourism.
• Represent the collective industry interests before policy makers.
• Lobby for better recognition of the hospitality industry worldwide.
• Lobby against damaging or costly attempts to regulate the industry.
• Create Global Councils around industry issues to debate positions & create solutions.
• Listen to its members to ensure that all issues are addressed.
• Plan a series of informative Council and Board meetings and an annual Congress.
• Provide support where requested to lend weight to local and regional issue.

6.3  Advocacy

As the only international trade association devoted to protecting the interests of the global hospitality industry, the International Hotel & Restaurant Association’s role is to monitor, research, and where possible, preempt the passage of regulation and taxation at the international level when this is deemed to run contrary to industry interests. The representation work involved in doing this is termed “advocacy” , i.e. advocating or defending the interests of a specific sector before public (and sometimes private) sector decision-making bodies.

Why to Undertake Advocacy?

The Travel & Tourism explosion of the last three decades has focused government attention on the hospitality sector as never before, bringing in its wake a surge of new regulation and taxation. Although laws are enacted at national level, they frequently have their genesis in international agencies (principally those of the United Nations) which have seen their role and mandate expand exponentially in recent decades.

As a result advocacy (or lobbying) to promote and defend the hospitality industry’s interests has been repeatedly stressed by Chain and National Association Chief Executives within IH&RA as the activity that constitutes their major expectation of membership. As a membership-driven association and the “voice of the industry”, IH&RA must be vigilantly proactive in protecting the global interests of the hospitality industry it represents. To do this, it is essential to monitor research and even more importantly, forecast the issues of concern and importance to its members and the industry at large

• Pacific Asia Travel Association (PATA).

Founded in 1951, the Pacific Asia Travel Association (PATA) is a not-for profit association that is internationally acclaimed for acting as a catalyst for the responsible development of travel and tourism to, from and within the Asia Pacific region. The Association provides aligned advocacy, insightful research and innovative events to its member organizations, comprising 95 governments, state and city tourism bodies, 29 international airlines, airports and cruise lines, 63 educational institutions, and hundreds of travel industry companies in Asia Pacific and beyond.

Since 1951 PATA has led from the front as the leading voice and authority on travel and tourism in the Asia Pacific region

• PATA’s Strategic Intelligence Centre (SIC) offers unrivalled data and insights including Asia Pacific inbound and outbound statistics, analyses and forecasts as well as in-depth reports on strategic tourism markets
• PATA’s events create millions of dollars of new business each year for its members
• The PATA Foundation contributes to the sustainable and responsible development of travel and tourism in Asia Pacific through the protection of the environment, the conservation of heritage and support for education.

7.1  PATA Chapters.

PATA Chapters are established throughout the world to assist in the fulfillment of the objectives of the Association. They are local community organizations of travel industry professionals who join in a co-operative Endeavour – within the framework of PATA – to develop travel and tourism to, from and within the Asia Pacific area. There are 40 PATA Chapters around the world that make valuable contributions to local travel industry communities.

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Reining in America’s $3.3 Trillion Tax-Exempt Economy

Key findings.

• For over a century, lawmakers have exempted politically favored organizations and industries from the tax A tax is a mandatory payment or charge collected by local, state, and national governments from individuals or businesses to cover the costs of general government services, goods, and activities. code. As a result, the tax-exempt nonprofit economy now comprises 15 percent of GDP, spans more than 1.8 million organizations, and manages over $8 trillion in assets. In 2019, it pocketed more than $238 billion in net income.
• The tax-exempt sector is overdue for review and reform. The U.S. needs a principled, rules-based approach to 1) distinguish between benevolent organizations and tax-exempt businesses, and 2) level the playing field between the business activities of nonprofit and for-profit entities.
• Many industries exempted from the income tax were designated as such in the Wilson-Gorman Tariff Tariffs are taxes imposed by one country on goods or services imported from another country. Tariffs are trade barriers that raise prices and reduce available quantities of goods and services for U.S. businesses and consumers. Act of 1894 and the Tax Act of 1909, but they reflect the social norms of the 19 th century, not our 21 st century economy.
• The majority of tax-exempt organizations today are business-like in form and function, including credit unions, hospitals, utilities, insurance companies, universities, professional athletic associations, golf clubs, and consulting firms, to name a few.
• Business-like income has been the fastest growing source of income for 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organizations over the past 30 years, now accounting for 71 percent of their income. Charitable donations make up just 12 percent of nonprofit income.
• More than half (55 percent) of all the income generated by 501(c)(3) organizations comes from tax-exempt hospitals and health-care plans. The largest nonprofit in America is Kaiser Permanente. Kaiser’s health plan, hospitals, and state health plans generated over $110 billion in revenues in 2019.
• In 2019, there were 325 501(c)(3) nonprofits with more than $1 billion in revenues—nearly all of which are hospitals and universities.
• The unrelated business income tax (UBIT) rules that were intended to rein in tax-exempt businesses have become toothless and have allowed the growth of large nonprofit businesses.
• A reasonable rewriting of the tax-exempt rules should include narrowing the definition of “public charity” and subjecting all non-charitable income to the corporate tax rate of 21 percent. Doing so could raise nearly $40 billion annually in new tax revenues.

Introduction

America has a $3.3 trillion tax gap The tax gap is the difference between taxes legally owed and taxes collected. The gross tax gap in the U.S. accounts for at least 1 billion in lost revenue each year, according to the latest estimate by the IRS (2011 to 2013), suggesting a voluntary taxpayer compliance rate of 83.6 percent. The net tax gap is calculated by subtracting late tax collections from the gross tax gap: from 2011 to 2013, the average net gap was around 1 billion. . But it’s not the tax gap we hear most about: the revenues the IRS fails to collect because of underreporting, mistakes, or outright tax avoidance. This tax gap rests squarely with Washington lawmakers who, starting more than a century ago, began exempting politically favored institutions, organizations, and activities from the tax code.

The result today is a massive untaxed economy that comprises 15 percent of GDP [1] , spans more than 1.8 million organizations [2] , manages over $8 trillion in assets, and collectively pocketed more than $238 billion in net income in 2019 [3] .

After more than a century of unbridled expansion, the scope of this untaxed economy is overdue for review and reform. Many of the nearly 30 nonprofit designations under 501(c) of the Internal Revenue Code have their origins in the Wilson-Gorman Tariff Act of 1894 and are artifacts of a more communitarian 19 th century American society, not a reflection of our modern 21 st century economy.

Contrary to the common image of nonprofits as purely benevolent organizations surviving on charitable donations, such organizations are in the minority. The vast majority of tax-exempt organizations are business-like in form and function, such as credit unions, utilities, insurance companies, hospitals, universities, professional athletic associations, golf clubs, casinos, cemeteries, and consulting firms, to name a few. And many of these organizations use their tax-exempt status to compete with taxpaying for-profit firms.

Unfortunately, the guardrails lawmakers have created to prevent unfair competition from nonprofits have been either too weak or too flexible to draw firm lines between benevolent activities, such as a local women’s shelter, and large business enterprises, such as the $1.1 billion NCAA. Both are considered “charitable” nonprofit organizations.

Business-like income has been the fastest growing source of income for 501(c)(3) charitable organizations, entities that can accept tax-deductible donations. Indeed, of the nearly $2.5 trillion in revenues that charitable organizations received in 2019, just 12 percent came from donors’ tax-deductible contributions and gifts. The majority of their income came from business-like revenues such as insurance payments, ticket sales, TV broadcast rights, royalties, and federal programs such as Medicare and Medicaid.

This raises the question: should an organization be considered a nonprofit, or even a charity, if only a fraction of its revenues come from charitable donations?

The tax base The tax base is the total amount of income, property, assets, consumption, transactions, or other economic activity subject to taxation by a tax authority. A narrow tax base is non-neutral and inefficient. A broad tax base reduces tax administration costs and allows more revenue to be raised at lower rates. is narrower than it need be because of how much nonprofit income is fully exempt from taxation. Charitable donations are tax deductible for the donor and tax-exempt for the receiving organization, what economists call double-non-tax-income. Similarly, corporations may deduct payments to nonprofits for such things as memberships, broadcast rights, and licensing fees. Thus, all of this income is outside of the federal tax base.

As Congress’s Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) has observed, “There is no unifying theme or singular principle that explains tax exemption A tax exemption excludes certain income, revenue, or even taxpayers from tax altogether. For example, nonprofits that fulfill certain requirements are granted tax-exempt status by the Internal Revenue Service ( IRS ), preventing them from having to pay income tax. for the many diverse organizations in the exempt sector.” [4] Nor, JCT says, is there an “agreed upon explanation of the rationale behind the charitable tax exemption and tax deduction A tax deduction is a provision that reduces taxable income . A standard deduction is a single deduction at a fixed amount. Itemized deductions are popular among higher-income taxpayers who often have significant deductible expenses, such as state and local taxes paid, mortgage interest , and charitable contributions. .”

A principled, rules-based approach to narrow the scope of qualified tax-exempt entities is needed. For example, taxing the income of nonprofits from sources other than charitable donations would broaden the tax base in a fair and economically efficient way. Such a rule would protect the charitable donations received by benevolent organizations while putting nonprofit businesses on the same level playing field as for-profit firms.

As we’ll see, based on 2019 data, taxing the business-like income of nonprofits could raise nearly $40 billion annually.

While there still may be a role in today’s economy for insurance-providing fraternal organizations, credit unions, and collegiate sports leagues, there is no longer a justification to exempt them from taxation.

The Scope of This Study Is Limited to 501(c) Organizations

It should be noted that the Tax Foundation is a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization whose mission is to advocate for economically principled tax policy, even if it means questioning our own industry.

The scope of this paper is limited to organizations that fall under 501(c) of the Internal Revenue Code, but the true scope of the tax-exempt economy is much larger. Churches, for example, are not required to file tax returns, so the government does not track how much income they collect annually, although Giving USA estimates that churches raised $143.6 billion in revenues in 2022. [5] Churches are not included in the study, but some 501(c) religious organizations are included.

Another tax-exempt sector that is not included is quasi-government entities such as state public universities, the Tennessee Valley Authority, and Federal Home Loan Banks. These tax-exempt enterprises generate roughly $500 billion in untaxed annual income.

The paper also ignores the charitable deduction and other tax breaks that shield income from taxation. Tax expenditures in the code topped $1.7 trillion in 2023 and deserve their own separate analysis.

The Nonprofit Tax Code Reflects America’s Pre-20 th Century Self-Help Roots

Volunteer and benevolent organizations existed in America long before our founding and even longer before the first federal income tax. Fraternal beneficiary societies provided insurance benefits for widows, aid for those too sick to work, and education for orphans. [6] Farmers banded together into cooperatives to provide lending for crops and marketing assistance. Credit unions and building and loan associations were formed to provide banking and lending to their members who worked in specific trades or lived in local communities. [7] Charity hospitals were common in most cities.

Such was the state of American society when lawmakers drafted a new income tax in the Wilson-Gorman Tariff Act of 1894 and decided to exempt certain organizations. But their decisions seemingly were based on social conventions rather than a coherent theory or principle.

The act specifically exempted “corporations, companies, or associations organized and conducted solely for charitable, religious, or educational purposes, including fraternal beneficiary societies, orders, or associations operating upon the lodge system and providing for the payment of life, sick, accident, and other benefits to the members of such societies, orders, or associations and dependents of such members.” [8] It also exempted savings banks, institutions that lent only to members, mutual insurance companies, and the income generated by the stocks and securities owned by charitable organizations.

Although the Supreme Court struck down the 1894 income tax, the bill’s tax-exempt language became the foundation for all subsequent tax legislation addressing nonprofits, including the Revenue Act of 1909, which established an excise tax An excise tax is a tax imposed on a specific good or activity. Excise taxes are commonly levied on cigarettes, alcoholic beverages, soda , gasoline , insurance premiums, amusement activities, and betting, and typically make up a relatively small and volatile portion of state and local and, to a lesser extent, federal tax collections. on corporate profits.

The 1909 Tax Bill Formalized Many of the Exempt Sectors We Know Today

The Revenue Act of 1909 expanded the sectors first recommended for exemption in 1894 by adding labor, agricultural, and horticultural organizations. It further defined the nature of nonprofit organizations as those “operated exclusively for the mutual benefit of their members.” And “no part of the net income of which inures to the benefit of any private stockholder or individual.” [9]

The prohibition against private inurement became a key factor in defining a “nonprofit” organization. “Nonprofit” is a bit of a misnomer because charitable organizations do have net income after expenses, what would otherwise be called “profits.” But nonprofit tax rules prohibit such surpluses from being distributed to any individual or “shareholder” and must be reinvested in the mission of the organization.

Despite these provisions, lawmakers never really clarified a defining theory of why some organizations should be tax-exempt and not others. Indeed, the Senate debate over the 1909 tax bill illustrated the ad hoc nature of the decision-making, not to mention the propensity of senators to stretch the definitions to include their favored industries and organizations.

Sen. Augustus Bacon (D-GA) was the lead sponsor of an amendment to define which activities should be exempt from the new corporate tax. One senator asked Sen. Bacon if the for-profit Methodist Book Concern in Nashville, Tennessee, should be exempt because it devoted all of its profits to “religious, benevolent, charitable, and educational purposes.” [10] Bacon argued that it should be tax-exempt because “It is organized for profit, but it is not organized for individual profit.” [11]

To address such questions, senators inserted the word “exclusively” into Bacon’s amendment to distinguish between the use of business profits worthy of tax exemption and profits that were not worthy.

An even more intense debate erupted over exempting building and loan associations from taxation. While some senators argued that the mission of helping the poor purchase homes was worthy of tax exemption, others argued that there were many large building and loan associations that were wholly commercial in nature and should not qualify for tax exemption. Senators ultimately agreed to add the words “mutual” and “domestic” to distinguish between small, local, and member-oriented building and loan associations and the large commercial firms.

Lawmakers Worried That Too Much of the Economy Was Exempted from Tax

Even with the adoption of qualifying language, some senators worried that too many sectors were being exempted, thus putting an unfair burden on the businesses still subject to the corporate tax.

Sen. Coe I. Crawford (R-SD) said, “The only question here is, Is it a corporation for profit and has it a net income to which this proposed [tax] law should apply? If so, why should it be exempted?”

Further, he predicted that groups would take advantage of the ambiguous language. “I think there is too much false sentiment about this matter,” he said. “Some one will come here and say ‘We are a lodge; we are an organization for the mutual help and benefit of our members, and therefore this law ought not to apply to us.’” [12]

Sen. Weldon B. Heyburn (R-ID) went a step further and asked, “Will some Senator tell me what remains and who there is remaining to pay this tax? I have just made a casual summary of the amount of capital exempted, and, according to the statistics, it is something over $1,800,000,000. There cannot be very much remaining.” [13]

Heyburn warned about the cumulative impact of the efforts by his fellow senators to exempt their special interests from the income tax. He said, “Having made a hasty mental summary as the various exemptions were proposed, and knowing as I do that you can call one of these concerns a ‘mutual benefit association,’ a ‘building association,’ or anything else, when it really may be a bank. I am merely calling attention to the fact that there will be very little left upon which to collect this revenue.”

Perhaps the most prophetic comment came from Sen. Joseph Bailey (D-TX), a strong proponent of the corporate tax, who said, “I would rather exempt some that ought to be taxed than to tax some that ought to be exempt.”

As we will see below, that philosophy likely explains the $3.3 trillion size of the untaxed economy today.

Lawmakers Continued to Exempt More Sectors and Added the Charitable Deduction

Sen. Crawford’s concern that lax definitions would lead to a proliferation of tax-exempt organizations proved to be far-sighted. The Revenue Act of 1913 expanded the list of exempt organizations even further, adding mutual savings banks, cemeteries, business leagues, chambers of commerce, civic leagues, and boards of trade. The Act also introduced the notion that civic leagues and similar organizations be “operated exclusively for the promotion of social welfare,” a term lawmakers did not define. [14]

The Revenue Act of 1916, which increased income tax rates and brackets, added to the list of tax-exempt organizations “clubs organized and operated exclusively for pleasure, recreation and other non-profitable purposes . . . cooperative banks, mutual hail, cyclone, or fire insurance companies, mutual ditch or irrigation companies, mutual telephone companies . . . farmers’ marketing associations . . . federal land banks and national farm loan associations,” to name just a few. [15]

The deduction for charitable gifts was established in the Revenue Act of 1917 out of concern that the high income tax rates levied during World War I would discourage charitable giving. Deductible contributions were limited to 15 percent of taxable net income. [16]

A “Nonprofit” Pasta Company Led to Stricter Limits on Business Activity

Lawmakers’ failure to establish principled guardrails regarding how much business activity a nonprofit could engage in finally reached a head in the late 1940s when New York University acquired C.F. Meuller pasta company with the intent of benefiting from the profits generated by selling macaroni. [17] Such arrangements were not uncommon at the time because nonprofit law operated under a “destination of income” principle, which allowed income from any source to be tax-free as long as it was dedicated to a charitable purpose. [18]

In 1949, the Bureau of Internal Revenue, the precursor to the Internal Revenue Service, released the first-ever analysis of 990 tax returns, representing all tax-exempt organizations in 1946. [19] The report separated the returns into two groups: business types, such as farm marketing cooperatives and mutual savings banks, and nonbusiness types such as civic clubs, charities, labor unions, and recreational groups that were not principally formed for business activities.

There were nearly 100,000 tax-exempt returns filed for 1946, and they reported total revenues of $9.8 billion. Of these, nearly 28,000 were business returns, accounting for $7.0 billion of the total revenues.

Interestingly, the report found that more than one-third of nonbusiness organizations reported business income totaling $1.1 billion. Business income accounted for 62 percent of the total revenues for “nonbusiness” organizations.

But even for organizations that did not report business-related income, charitable contributions and gifts were not a major share of their revenues. Indeed, charitable contributions and gifts composed 37.6 percent of their receipts. The majority of their income was generated by dues assessments from members as well as investment income.

Cases such as the New York University pasta company renewed concern among lawmakers that nonprofits were unfairly competing against for-profit firms and potentially shrinking the corporate tax base.

Lawmakers’ solution was to establish the unrelated business income tax (UBIT) rules as part of the Revenue Act of 1950. UBIT requires that any business income be “substantially related” to the organization’s core mission. Business income that is not substantially related is taxed at the statutory corporate tax rate.

Shortly after the passage of UBIT, Congress voted in 1951 to remove the tax exemption for mutual savings banks and savings and loan associations “to establish parity between competing financial institutions.” [20]

However, as we’ll see later, UBIT has become so generous in defining what is allowable business income for nonprofits that it generates very little revenue each year.

There Are Two Types of Nonprofits: Public-Serving and Member-Serving

The Internal Revenue Code of 1954 was a watershed moment in tax policy. [21] In addition to establishing the modern progressive income tax code that we recognize today, the Act formalized the designation of tax-exempt organizations under section 501(c) of the Internal Revenue Code.

The 1954 Act listed 16 types of tax-exempt organizations, but as Table 1 illustrates, the list has since grown to nearly 30 designations, although some are legacy designations and no longer in use.

The nonprofit world is generally split into two broad categories: public-serving and member-serving organizations.

• Public-Serving : The most well-known nonprofits are 501(c)(3) public charity organizations intended to serve broad, public interests such as tending to the poor, education, public health, scientific research, and cultural interests. These organizations can accept tax-deductible contributions.
• Member-Serving : All other 501(c) designations are largely member-serving organizations, including credit unions, business leagues, professional associations, rural utilities, real estate holding companies, insurance companies, and cemeteries. These organizations cannot accept charitable donations.

The Tax-Exempt Sector Is Equal to the Fifth-Largest Economy in the World

The senators who worried about the expanding list of tax-exempt entities in the Tax Act of 1909 would be shocked at the size of the tax-exempt economy today. Sen. Heyburn made a casual estimate of the amount of capital exempted at “something over $1,800,000,000,” or roughly 5 percent of U.S. GDP in 1909. [22] Today, the tax-exempt economy commands 15 percent of GDP, roughly equal to the GDP of California , which has the fifth-largest economy in the world.

Table 1 illustrates the breadth of the untaxed economy under 501(c) of the Internal Revenue Code. The data in this table is based on the most recent 2019 nonprofit datasets compiled and formatted by the Urban Institute’s National Center for Charitable Statistics. The Urban Institute datasets are drawn from various IRS data sources and include “financial information, governance details, and other organizational characteristics.” [23]

IRS data for tax-exempt organizations is available for COVID-19 years, 2020, 2021, and 2022. However, we chose not to use this data because it does not represent a typical year.

While the total number of nonprofits is over 1.8 million, the table represents organizations that file a full 990 federal income tax return providing complete financial information, which amounts to about 400,000 entities. The exception is 501(c)(1) federal credit unions that are not required to file a 990 tax return. Their financial information is sourced from the National Credit Union Administration. Many small nonprofits are allowed to file a postcard return and, thus, are generally not included in the data sets made available by the IRS.

In 2019, tax-exempt nonprofit organizations reported nearly $3.3 trillion in income and roughly $3.1 trillion in expenses, which resulted in $238 billion in net income. They commanded over $8 trillion in assets.

The largest category of nonprofit by far is the 501(c)(3) category of organizations. In 2019, these organizations booked nearly $2.5 trillion in revenues, equal to 75 percent of all nonprofit revenues. Their net income totaled nearly $152 billion, equal to 63 percent of all nonprofit net income. They also manage the majority of nonprofit assets.

The largest member-serving organizations by income include various insurance and retirement entities under sections 501(c)(4) Civic Leagues and Social Welfare Organizations (the largest of which are health insurers), 501(c)(9) Voluntary Employee’s Beneficiary Associations, and 501(c)(11) Teachers Retirement Fund Associations.

Federal and state credit unions, operating under sections 501(c)(1) and 501(c)(14), respectively, together generated $82.4 billion in revenues in 2019 and commanded over $1.5 trillion in assets in 2019, equal to 18 percent of all nonprofit assets.

Let’s first take a deeper look at public-serving nonprofits since they are by far the largest sector.

The Majority of Public-Serving 501(c)(3) Nonprofits Are Business-Like Entities

The universe of public-serving nonprofits is vast and diverse. Indeed, to manage this diversity, 501(c)(3) organizations have been further segmented into 28 codes under the National Taxonomy of Exempt Entities (NTEE), as illustrated in Table 2 below.

However, if we were to generalize the public-serving nonprofit industry by its dominant industries, it could be called the hospital, health insurance, university, and education sector. Of the $2.5 trillion in revenues collected by 501(c)(3) organizations in 2019, 55 percent was generated by nonprofit hospitals and health insurance firms, and another 12 percent was generated by higher education entities such as colleges and universities.

There Are Many Very Rich Nonprofits

In 2019, there were 325 501(c)(3) nonprofits with more than $1 billion in revenues—nearly all were either hospitals or universities. Among the $1 billion organizations that were not hospitals or universities:

• Just three are relief-oriented: World Vision, Feeding America, and the American Red Cross.
• One is a museum: the Smithsonian Institution.
• Four are essentially government contractors: the MITRE Corporation, Battelle Memorial Institute, Advanced Technology International, and Aerospace Corporation.
• One is the largest collegiate athletic association: the NCAA.
• Three are university-related organizations: the College Board, the Research Foundation for the State of New York, and the Educational Testing Service.
• And the rest are donor-advised funds or public foundations: the Nemours Foundation, National Philanthropic, Goldman Sachs Philanthropy Fund, Schwab Charitable Fund, and Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund.

The largest nonprofit in America is Kaiser Permanente. In 2019, Kaiser’s health plan, hospitals, and state health plans generated more than $110 billion in combined tax-exempt revenues and over $5.6 billion in net income. No other nonprofit came close to Kaiser’s revenues. If Kaiser were for-profit, it would be among the Fortune 40 in revenues.

Nonprofit hospitals and healthcare firms comprise 55% of all 501(c)(3) revenues, booking $60 billion in profits. Higher education is the second largest sector. Most of their income comes from non-charitable sources.

The other hospitals with more than $10 billion in revenues included the University of Pennsylvania Medical Center (UPMC) with $14.8 billion in revenues, Partners Health Care System with $13.6 billion, the Cleveland Clinic Foundation with $11.5 billion, and the Mayo Clinic Group with $10.4 billion.

Overall, nonprofit hospitals and health plans generated $1.4 trillion in revenues in 2019 and $61 billion in net income. They held assets of $1.9 trillion. Very little of this income comes from charitable contributions or grants. Urban Institute data shows that charitable contributions comprised 10 percent of hospital revenues and just 3 percent of health plan revenues.

Most hospital revenues are considered “program service income,” which includes insurance payments, patient reimbursements, and payments from Medicare and Medicaid. For health plans, most income is earned from insurance premiums.

Had these profitable health insurance and hospital firms been taxed at the standard corporate tax rate of 21 percent, they could have collectively been liable for nearly $13 billion in taxes in 2019.

Private Universities and Their Endowments Dominate the Education Sector

In 2019, there were 51 private universities with more than $1 billion in revenues. Ten universities reported more than $5 billion in income, including the University of Pennsylvania, Harvard, New York University, Johns Hopkins, Stanford, University of Southern California, Columbia, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Yale, and Cornell. As a group, they held $264 billion in assets.

Collectively, private colleges and universities enjoyed net income of $22.2 billion in 2019. Had they been taxed as for-profit businesses they could have been liable for $4.6 billion in taxes.

Despite their tax-exempt status, the majority of university income comes from sources other than charitable donations from alumni. Overall, nearly 70 percent of university income comes from “program service revenue,” which includes tuition, fees, ticket sales from sporting events, patent royalties, rents from dorms, and cafeteria sales—all considered substantively related to their mission and, thus, exempt from taxes.

By contrast, charitable contributions accounted for 19 percent of total revenues for private universities and colleges.

Many universities have separate investment arms categorized as general “education” organizations, putting them in the same category as private primary and secondary schools.

For example, the $2 billion Gothic Corporation invests on behalf of Duke University. It held $7.6 billion in assets in 2019. Similarly, the Harvard Management Private Equity Corporation managed $31 billion in assets, while the Harvard Private Capital Realty Inc. managed $3.5 billion in assets. The University of Virginia Investment Management Corporation held $9.8 billion in assets, while the University of Wisconsin Foundation reported $4.1 billion in assets.

The Urban Institute dataset contains more than 800 university-related endowments, foundations, and fund-raising entities in 2019. These entities raised a total of $26.8 billion that year and had more than $209 billion in assets. They ended the year with $7.5 billion in net income which, had it been taxed at 21 percent, could have generated more than $1.5 billion in tax revenues.

Business-Like Organizations Abound in Unlikely 501(c)(3) Categories

Many nonprofit categories contain an eclectic mix of large business-like organizations alongside small local organizations. For example, the Arts & Culture sector contains hundreds of local arts projects, dance companies, theater groups, and orchestras. It also includes some very large institutions that could very well be considered for-profit organizations. The Harvard Business School Publishing Corporation is a good example.

In 2019, Harvard Business School Publishing (HBS) generated more than $265 million in revenues. According to its 990 tax return, it ended the year with net income of $3.9 million and paid about $1.1 million in taxes on $14 million in advertising income unrelated to its core mission. [24] On paper, it would appear that HBS generated very little in the way of “profits” on its book publishing activities, but that is because it made a $52.9 million transfer to the “President and Fellows of Harvard College” that it booked as an expense, which reduced its true net income. However, if HBS were a for-profit firm, it would be able to deduct any gifts to Harvard or any other nonprofit.

In some respects, this is similar to NYU’s attempt to use the profits from pasta sales to fund university activities. The only difference in Harvard’s case is that both entities are 501(c)(3) organizations.

Other business-like entities under the Arts & Culture umbrella include the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the Public Broadcasting Service, National Public Radio, and the WGBH network, all nonprofit competitors of for-profit television and radio networks.

Another unique “cultural” entity is Creative Testing Solutions, which generated over $400 million in revenues in 2019, “Providing innovative, customized and exceptional laboratory testing services, in support of our healthcare partners and their life saving missions.” [25] These services seem very commercial in nature.

Conducting “Science” Can Be Big Business

Science research was one of the earliest activities to be made tax-exempt. But it is unlikely that those early lawmakers could have imagined how big of an industry “science research” and consulting services has become today and how much it lives off of government largess.

The biggest of these organizations is the Battelle Memorial Institute. By all appearances, Battelle is a government contractor. It manages nine national laboratories for the U.S. Department of Energy and Department of Homeland Security. Battelle bills itself as providing “comprehensive scientific solutions to companies and government agencies across multiple markets.” [26] According to Battelle’s 2021 990 tax return, the organization generated $10 billion in revenues, 97 percent of which was from government grants and contracts.

Similar stories can be told about large tax-exempt science and engineering consulting organizations such as the MITRE Corporation, Aerospace Corporation, Fermi Research Alliance LLC, SRI International, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, Noblis Inc., SRC Inc., and In-Q-Tel Inc. Each of these organizations provides services for the government and corporations comparable to those provided by for-profit consulting and management firms. They just provide such services as a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt nonprofit.

Many universities have established affiliated research and consulting organizations to provide support and resources for the research activities of the university. The largest of these is the Research Triangle Institute (RTI), which was organized in 1958 by the state universities of North Carolina along with Duke University, which is private. RTI generated more than $967 million in revenues in 2019.

RTI’s online promotional material reads like a commercial research and consulting firm. [27] RTI bills itself as “a leading independent, nonprofit research institute, with the contractual, legal, and business structures to serve any client with projects of all sizes.” It combines “the scientific rigor of a university with the focus of a project management firm . . . to deliver what our clients need—on target and on time.”

RTI’s 990 tax return reports that the organization does have “several for-profit entities subject to corporate income taxation,” and its presence in “certain foreign countries results in income taxation in these countries.” [28] Yet, RTI qualifies as a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization under the U.S. tax code.

Business Income Is Now the Largest Share of Nonprofit Revenues

Because of the growth of business-like income over the past three decades, it is hard to call the 501(c)(3) sector the “charitable” sector anymore. Figure 1 shows how the growth in program service revenues has driven the overall growth in nonprofit revenues over the past 30 years. Generally speaking, program service revenues can include Medicare and Medicaid payments, payments for medical services from insurers and patients, tuition, ticket sales, royalties, insurance premiums, conference registration fees, fees and contracts from government agencies, and unrelated business income.

Since 1988, program service revenues have risen from $548 billion, in today’s dollars, to more than $1.8 trillion in 2019—an increase of 310 percent. [29]

Program revenues comprised 71 percent of nonprofit revenues in 2019, up from 67 percent in 1988. By contrast, charitable contributions comprised just 12 percent of nonprofit revenues in 2019.

As surprising as this may seem, the real story is that charitable contributions have never been the dominant source of income for 501(c)(3) organizations or for tax-exempts generally. As we saw in the Treasury Department’s 1949 study, even for organizations without business-related income, charitable donations were exceeded by dues, membership fees, and other income sources.

IRS data shows that as a share of 501(c)(3) income, contributions fell from 27 percent in 1975 to 18 percent in 1982 and 12 percent in 2019. [30]

Nonprofits Are Increasingly Dependent on Funds from Government

While the 1949 Treasury study separated tax-exempt organizations into business and nonbusiness types, a third type of nonprofit has emerged since the Great Society of the 1960s—government-dependent organizations. Such organizations derive most of their income from government grants, contracts, or programs such as Medicaid, Medicare, public housing, and anti-poverty aid.

As we saw with the research and consulting organizations discussed above, many government agencies rely on nonprofit organizations as contractors or subcontractors, managing programs such as public housing, transit systems, social services, and job training.

Figure 1 shows that government grants alone nearly equal charitable contributions in most years, and government grants do not include revenues from government contracts or programs such as Medicare and Medicaid, which are considered program service income.

Identifying Purely Benevolent 501(c)(3) Organizations Is Challenging

Many of the organization types we have reviewed so far are business-like in form and function. But looking at the list of 501(c)(3) NTEE categories, a few stand out as containing more benevolent organizations than business-like organizations.

Employment and job-related organizations (category J) range from job training services to local trade unions. Perhaps the most prominent name in this category is Goodwill Industries, with some 180 local chapters. Dress for Success is another national organization with more than 50 chapters providing business attire and training to women seeking jobs. [31]

A sizeable number of organizations in this category are lesser-known community-based vocational training and apprenticeship organizations supported by government grants and private donations. Trade unions operate similar apprentice and training programs for carpenters, masons, electricians, and pipe fitters, for example.

Standing out from such training programs are numerous local union chapters, supported by member dues.

The most benevolent-centered category is K, representing food, agriculture, and nutrition organizations. The Urban Institute dataset includes more than 5,700 food, agriculture, and nutrition organizations with total revenues of nearly $17.8 billion in 2019. Here we find that nearly every organization is a food bank, food pantry, child hunger-related organization, or adult nutrition service such as Meals on Wheels. The largest such organization is the $2.8 billion Feeding America, but most are local in nature such as the $10 million Food Bank of East Alabama and the $30,000 Westlake Meals on Wheels.

Overall, contributions and grants comprised 90 percent of the revenues for food and nutrition organizations in 2019, which clearly sets these benevolent organizations apart from most other nonprofits.

The housing and shelter organizations comprising category L include a mix of benevolent organizations, government contractors, and business-like entities. Many of the larger organizations in this category are public housing providers or management contractors. The largest such organization is Navigate Affordable Housing Partners in Birmingham, Alabama, which received 99.7 percent of its $605 million in 2019 income from U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development grants and contracts. [32]

Vetter Senior Living in Elkhorn, Nebraska , is also representative of the more business-like organizations in this category. Started in 1975 by Jack and Eldora Vetter, this chain of senior living facilities received more than half ($134 million) of its $222.5 million in revenues from Medicaid and Medicare in 2019. [33] Most of the remaining income came from “patient service revenue” and “management revenues.” [34] On the surface, it is difficult to distinguish between the services that Vetter provides as a “nonprofit” and those provided by for-profit senior living companies.

Habitat for Humanity is the largest of the more traditional volunteer-based service organizations found in this category. The vast majority of its $288 million in revenues in 2019 came from grants, contributions, and in-kind gifts. [35]

Multipurpose is the operative term for human service organizations in category P. The largest organization in this category is the American Red Cross with more than $2.8 billion in income in 2019. The AARP Foundation is also listed as a human service organization and illustrates how some large nonprofits use related tax-exempt entities to expand their operations. Its 990 for 2019 shows that it is affiliated with other AARP entities, including the main AARP entity, which is a 501(c)(4) nonprofit. [36] The main AARP entity booked some $1.7 billion in revenues in 2019, including more than $977 million in tax-free royalty income. [37]

The Urban Institute datasets include more than 600 separate filings for local YMCA or WYCA chapters, which have combined income of $6.1 billion and assets of $12 billion. By contrast, the largest for-profit fitness company by income is LA Fitness, which also has 600 locations but only $2 billion in revenues.

But the category also includes an interesting variety of smaller organizations, such as dog rescues, adult day care centers, children’s day care centers, hospice care, community centers, thrift stores, pregnancy centers, diaper banks, and yoga studios.

A Look into Member-Serving Tax-Exempt Organizations: 501(c)(1) – 501(c)(29)

Almost by definition, organizations other than 501(c)(3) entities have a business orientation in some manner, even if they were intended to be member-serving. These include credit unions, rural utilities and coops, insurance companies, pension funds, business and sports leagues, cemeteries, real estate holding companies, farmer coops, fraternal organizations, social and recreation clubs, and veterans organizations.

Let’s explore a few of these categories.

501(c)(4) organizations are a good example of how tax-exempt definitions can be expanded to include big businesses. While tax laws require that such organizations be “operated exclusively to promote social welfare,” that concept seems to have been interpreted broadly. [38]

Washington insiders may associate 501(c)(4) organizations with activist and public policy organizations like the Sierra Club and the American Civil Liberties Union, but such organizations are in the minority. Social welfare organizations seem to be split between a few hundred large health-related firms and thousands of smaller 501(c)(4) organizations such as Rotary clubs, Kiwanis, Lions clubs, Optimist clubs, American Legion, Links chapters, homeowners associations, and volunteer fire departments.

The largest 501(c)(4) entities, those with more than $100 million in revenues, are predominantly health-related firms such as dental plans, HMOs, and health-care networks. Delta Dental Plans, with roughly 30 state entities, is the largest of these organizations. In 2019, it had combined revenues of more than $15 billion and net income of $339 million.

Perhaps the most unusual of these large “social welfare” organizations is the Prairie Meadows Racetrack & Casino Inc. in Altoona, Iowa . Originally launched as a commercial venture, which went bankrupt, it was converted into a nonprofit in 1994 and is reportedly one of only two nonprofit casinos in the U.S. With more than $2.3 billion in 2019 revenues, Prairie Meadows says it is “dedicated to lessening the burden of government by raising funds for charitable organizations and community improvement projects.” [39]

Prairie Meadows’ mission statement is an interesting justification for the tax-exempt status of what was a failed commercial venture. It harkens back to the 1909 Senate quandary whether the for-profit Methodist Book Concern should pay the corporate income tax A corporate income tax (CIT) is levied by federal and state governments on business profits. Many companies are not subject to the CIT because they are taxed as pass-through businesses , with income reportable under the individual income tax . because it gave away its profits to charitable causes. And tying a casino’s charitable status to “lessening the burden of government” is a questionable principle that could open the door to no end of dubious “commercial” but tax-exempt enterprises, such as a “nonprofit” marijuana dispensary.

The 501(c)(6) “business league” category could be called the tax-exempt home of K Street lobbyists, golf and tennis companies, professional guilds, and tourism boards. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is said to have led the effort in 1913 to exempt business membership organizations and civic leagues from tax during the debate over the Revenue Act of 1913. Indeed, some of the biggest business groups in Washington, D.C., are organized as 501(c)(6) entities, including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, American Petroleum Institute, American Hospital Association, American Bureau of Shipping, American Chemistry Council, National Milk Producers Federation, and National Association of Broadcasters.

Many professional sports organizations are also organized as “business leagues.” While the NFL, MLB, and NBA renounced their tax-exempt status years ago, a number of prominent professional sports leagues still maintain their tax-exempt status. These include the PGA, United States Tennis Association, ATP Tour, Ladies Professional Golf Association, WTA Tour Inc., United States Polo Association, the Breeders Cup Limited, National Hot Rod Association, and Professional Golfers Association of America.

This is also a common organizational form for professional organizations, such as the American Bar Association, American Medical Association, National Association of Realtors, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, and Motion Picture Association.

Advertising and promotional organizations are frequently organized as 501(c)(6) organizations. Notable promotional organizations include the Houston Super Bowl Host Committee, Avocados from Mexico , United States Meat Export Federation, Greater Miami Convention and Visitors Bureau, Atlanta Convention & Visitors Bureau, and Dairy Promotion Inc.

The social and recreation clubs represented in the 501(c)(7) classification may consist of some of the most exclusive golf, athletic, and social clubs in the United States. Social and recreational clubs were exempted from tax in the 1916 Tax Act. Many of the largest cities have exclusive social and athletic clubs, including the New York Athletic Club, the Detroit Athletic Club, the Atlanta Athletic Club, the Yale Club of New York City, the Harvard Club of New York City, and the Bohemian Club near San Francisco. Indeed, the Tax Foundation was organized at a meeting of business leaders in 1937 at the University Club in New York City.

Golf courses dominate the 501(c)(7) category of nonprofit organizations, including some of the most iconic and exclusive golf clubs in America, such as the Congressional Country Club, Baltusrol Golf Club, Winged Foot Golf Club, Oakmont Country Club, and Sawgrass Country Club. By contrast, Augusta National Golf Club, which hosts the Masters tournament, is a for-profit corporate entity.

The richest of all the clubs in 2019 was the Desert Mountain Club in Scottsdale, Arizona , which reported $68 million in revenues. Membership to this exclusive golf and lifestyle community is by “invitation only.” [40] The Club’s real estate listings include homes ranging from $1.5 million to nearly $13 million.

There are certainly smaller, less famous clubs in this category, including a Giant Schnauzer club, local boating clubs, swim and tennis clubs, kennel clubs, singing clubs, model train clubs, a Slovak Citizens club, and various cotillion clubs.

Fraternal beneficiary societies organized under 501(c)(8) of the tax code are now largely insurance companies. Fraternal beneficiary societies were a prevalent part of America’s self-help culture when the first income taxes were being drafted, first in 1894 and then in 1909. Yet, as B.H. Meyer explained in an academic study in 1900, there was always a tension between their social function and their beneficiary function.

Fraternal beneficiary societies, as the name suggests, are dual in their nature. Because they are both fraternal and beneficiary, these societies are really composed of two organizations each: a fraternity and an insurance company . . . In other words, a typical fraternal society rests upon three things: first, voluntary organization on a basis of equality; second, some ritualistic system; and third, a system of benefits. These three are united in different proportions in different societies, and in not a few of them a struggle for predominance is taking place between the first and third. This is the battle between “fraternalism and commercialism.” [41]

More than 100 years later, the commercial side of these organizations has won out. For example, WoodmenLife—which was founded in 1890—offers various types of life insurance and retirement products. [42] Modern Woodmen (unrelated to WoodmenLife) offers an even broader portfolio of products beyond life insurance, such as retirement planning, estate planning, and employee benefits. [43] The Knights of Columbus does have a well-known service side, but also offers its members retirement annuities, mutual funds, donor advised funds, and various life insurance policies. [44]

The products and services offered by these nonprofit organizations are in direct competition with similar products offered by for-profit financial service firms.

Tax-exempt public electric, water, and utility companies are a legacy of Depression-era efforts to promote rural self-help. Today’s 501(c)(12) tax-exempt utilities were formed as “cooperatives” during the early 1900s to bring electricity and water services to rural areas at a time when the larger urban utilities didn’t find it profitable to reach those markets. In 1934, Congress created the Rural Electrification Administration—now the Rural Utilities Service (RUS)—within the U.S. Department of Agriculture to promote the growth of rural coops and provide them low-cost financing.

Some 90 years later, rural coops are still dependent upon their tax-exempt status and subsidized loans. Notably, many of the “rural” communities these coops were created to serve are now prosperous suburbs of cities such as Washington, D.C., and Atlanta, Georgia , not to mention tony resort communities such as Sanibel and Marco Island in Florida .

This ecosystem of tax-exempt utilities is supported by two larger tax-exempt organizations. The industry’s lobbying arm is the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association, a 501(c)(6) membership organization. [45] The industry’s lending arm—independent of the federal RUS—is the $1.38 billion National Rural Utilities Cooperative Finance Corporation (CFC). CFC is a 501(c)(4) entity and bills itself as “Bridging the financial needs of the rural electric cooperative network with global capital markets.” [46] It has more than $35 billion in assets.

The Paper Tiger of Nonprofit Law: The Unrelated Business Income Tax

Congress enacted UBIT in 1950 with the aim of leveling the playing field between tax-exempt organizations and for-profit firms. But as Jeffrey Scott Tenenbaum wrote in his primer on UBIT for the American Bar Association, “instead of prohibiting tax-exempt entities from engaging in any business activities at all . . . Congress chose to specifically permit a certain degree of business activity by tax-exempt organizations, but tax that activity like any other for-profit business.” [47]

Thus, writes Tenenbaum, “such business activities are permissible, so long as the activities are not a ‘substantial part of [the nonprofit’s] activities.’ The tax applies to virtually all tax-exempt entities.”

A frequent example of the difference between taxable and non-taxable sales activities is a museum gift shop that sells greeting cards bearing reproductions of paintings in the museum’s collection as well as local maps and souvenirs. UBIT rules would require the museum to pay tax on the income generated by the souvenirs because those items are not related to the museum’s mission. But it would not pay UBIT on income generated by the greeting cards with an image of a Monet because those sales are related to the museum’s mission of advancing art appreciation. [48]

The Harvard Business School magazine is another example. HBS does not pay tax on the income generated by its business publications or magazine subscriptions because they are determined to be a key element of the organization’s mission. However, HBS does pay tax on the income generated by the advertising in the magazine because those promote private and commercial interests separate from HBS’s mission.

There are, however, numerous exemptions to UBIT that give organizations wide latitude to earn business-like income. This includes income from corporate sponsorships, royalties, TV broadcast rights, certain rents, interest, dividends, and convention fees to name a few.

As a result of UBIT’s narrow scope and numerous exemptions, the tax raises very few revenue. IRS data on UBIT revenues from 1990 to 2017 shows that, on average, 17 percent of nonprofit charitable organizations reported unrelated business income and roughly half of those organizations were liable for UBIT. After adjusting for inflation Inflation is when the general price of goods and services increases across the economy, reducing the purchasing power of a currency and the value of certain assets. The same paycheck covers less goods, services, and bills. It is sometimes referred to as a “ hidden tax ,” as it leaves taxpayers less well-off due to higher costs and “bracket creep,” while increasing the government’s spending power. , UBIT raised an average of $586 million per year from 1990 to 2017, less than 0.5 percent of the billions in net income charitable nonprofits generated each year. [49]

So rather than level the playing field, UBIT has had little to no effect on preventing nonprofits from engaging in business-like activities nor competing directly with for-profit firms.

Three Reforms Can Level the Playing Field and Broaden the Tax Base

After more than 100 years of nonprofit expansion into the business economy, it is time that lawmakers developed some simple and uniform rules that accomplish two things: 1) distinguish between benevolent organizations and business-like entities, and 2) expressly level the playing field between the business activities of nonprofit and for-profit entities.

Three changes would remove the tax advantage that business-like nonprofits have over for-profit firms while protecting the charitable income of benevolent organizations.

Step 1: The first step is to raise the threshold for the percentage of charitable contributions a 501(c)(3) organization must receive to be considered a “publicly supported” charity. Currently, an organization needs to show that it receives at least 30 percent of its revenues from “public” sources to be considered a public charity eligible to accept tax-deductible donations. Public sources is a broad concept that includes contributions from the public, government grants, grants from charitable foundations, net income from unrelated business activities, membership fees, and gross investment income. [50]

Since our goal is to narrow the definition of a “publicly supported” charity to focus on benevolent organizations, the income threshold should be increased to 80 percent and limited to donations from private individuals and grants from charitable foundations. Income from government contracts, government grants for services, membership fees, investment income, and business income should not be included as these sources are more business-like than charitable in nature.

Such a rule would protect the “public charity” status of a women’s shelter that hosts an annual charity ball but would likely deny that status for a nonprofit group such as the Battelle Memorial Institute that receives most of its income from contracts or grants for service from the departments of Energy or Defense, for example.

Step 2: The second step would be to eliminate UBIT and apply the 21 percent corporate income tax to the net program service income of all nonprofit organizations. The calculation of net program service income would differ between 501(c)(3) organizations and other nonprofits because of the need to separate charitable income from program service revenues.

As was discussed earlier, most 501(c)(3) organizations generate income from charitable donations and program service revenue. Program service revenues are the kind of income that a for-profit firm would normally pay tax on, including tuition, fees, Medicare and Medicaid payments, insurance reimbursements, rents, contract income, royalties, and broadcast rights. Under this proposed rule, nonprofits would subtract their program-related expenses from their program service revenues and pay income tax on the remainder.

In the table below, we estimate that 501(c)(3) organizations had $92 billion in net program service income in 2019. Had this net income, or profits, been taxed at the 21 percent corporate tax rate, it could have raised $19 billion in new tax revenues. This estimate does not account for any behavioral effects, nor have we accounted for an adjustment to corporate accounting standards such as bonus expensing.

Calculating taxable income Taxable income is the amount of income subject to tax , after deductions and exemptions . For both individuals and corporations, taxable income differs from—and is less than—gross income. is much simpler for all other exempt organizations since they don’t have to account for charitable contributions. All of their income is assumed to be program service income. These organizations would simply pay the corporate income tax rate on their income net of expenses like any private business.

In 2019, these organizations had $87 billion in net income, or profits. Had these profits been taxed at the 21 percent corporate tax rate, it could have raised $18 billion in revenues.

Lastly, federal credit unions generated $7 billion in net income in 2019 and would have been liable for $2 billion in taxes had they been taxed at 21 percent.

Combined, taxing the net program income of all nonprofits could have raised $39 billion in new revenues in 2019.

Using 2019 data, taxing the net program income of 501(c)(3) organizations could raise as much as $19 billion in revenues. Taxing all other 501(c) organizations on their net income could raise $18 billion. Overall, the policy could raise upwards of $39 billion.

Step 3: The final step would be to decide how to tax the investment income—dividends, interest, and capital gains—of tax-exempt organizations. Table 3 includes investment income in the total net “profits” of tax-exempt organizations and, thus, assumes they are taxed at 21 percent. Currently, most nonprofits pay no tax on their investment income under the theory that such income supports the mission of the organization. However, private foundations are required to pay a 1.39 percent excise tax on their investment income. Large university endowments are also required to pay a 1.4 percent excise tax if the endowment assets exceed $500,000 per student.

The rate at which nonprofit investment income is taxed is not a trivial matter. In 2019, the Urban Institute dataset shows that 501(c)(3) organizations reported $51.8 billion in investment income. All other 501(c) organizations reported $19.4 billion in investment income, which brings the total of nonprofit investment income to $71.2 billion. Taxing this income at roughly 1.4 percent rather than 21 percent would yield much less revenue.

The tax exemption for investment income has allowed some large nonprofits to become tax-exempt hedge funds. Tax neutrality demands that all taxpayers pay the same rate on their investment income. Thus, it would make sense to tax the investment income of nonprofits at the 21 percent corporate rate and remove any incentive for arbitrage or income shifting.

Washington faces a brewing fiscal crisis that will force lawmakers to look for additional tax revenues, either to address mounting deficits or to offset the extension of key portions of the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act—perhaps even both. The fairest and least economically harmful way to raise new revenues is to expand the federal tax base to include business-like income earned by tax-exempt nonprofit organizations.

The rules governing the tax-exempt sector are long overdue for reform. The $3.3 trillion nonprofit economy is dominated by large, business-like organizations that overshadow the truly benevolent organizations the tax exemption should be reserved for.

A reasonable rewriting of the tax-exempt rules should include narrowing the definition of “public charity,” repealing the toothless UBIT, and subjecting all non-charitable income to taxation. Doing so would protect the charitable income of benevolent organizations while leveling the playing field between nonprofits and for-profit entities. Most importantly, tighter rules would also give a principled foundation to the nonprofit sector that has been missing for the past 120 years.

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[1] Author calculations.

[2] Internal Revenue Service, “Exempt Organizations Business Master File Extract (EO BMF),” https://www.irs.gov/charities-non-profits/exempt-organizations-business-master-file-extract-eo-bmf

[3] Author calculations, See Table 1.

[4] Congress of the United States, Joint Committee on Taxation, Historical Development and Present Law of the Federal Tax Exemption for Charities and Other Tax-Exempt Organizations , Apr. 19, 2005, https://www.jct.gov/publications/2005/jcx-29-05/ .

[5] Giving USA, “Giving USA Limited Data Tableau Visualization, 2022 Giving Overview,” https://givingusa.org/giving-usa-limited-data-tableau-visualization/ .

[6] B.H. Meyer, “Fraternal Beneficiary Societies in the United States,” American Journal of Sociology 6:5 (March 1901): 647, https://www.jstor.org/stable/2762005 .

[7] Scott Hodge, “After 90 Years, It Is Time to Wean Credit Unions off Taxpayer Subsidies,” Tax Foundation, Jan. 30, 2024, https://taxfoundation.org/research/all/federal/credit-union-tax-treatment/

[8] Tariff of 1894 (Wilson-Gorman Tariff), Aug. 27, 1894, https://fraser.stlouisfed.org/title/5901 . (The income tax is defined on p. 553 and the tax-exempt language begins on p. 556.)

[9] American Association of Public Accountants, The Corporation Tax Law of 1909, https://egrove.olemiss.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1955&context=aicpa_guides .

[10] 44 Cong. Rec. 4151 (1909).

[12] Ibid., p. 4155.

[13] Ibid., p. 4156.

[14] H.R. 3321, 63 rd Cong. (1913), p. 172, https://fraser.stlouisfed.org/files/docs/historical/congressional/underwood-tariff-1913.pdf .

[15] E. Gordon Keith, “New Data on Tax-Exempt Organizations,” Proceedings of the Annual Conference on Taxation under the Auspices of the National Tax Association 38 (1945): 257-269, www.jstor.org/stable/23404793 .

[16] Individual Income Tax An individual income tax (or personal income tax) is levied on the wages, salaries, investments, or other forms of income an individual or household earns. The U.S. imposes a progressive income tax where rates increase with income. The Federal Income Tax was established in 1913 with the ratification of the 16th Amendment . Though barely 100 years old, individual income taxes are the largest source of tax revenue in the U.S. Return for Calendar Year 1917, Form 1040 Instructions, https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-prior/f1040--1917.pdf .

[17] Mark B. Edwards, “It All Started With Macaroni: A Trip Through the Shadowy World of UBIT,” prepared for the 2005 Legal Forum, September 2005, https://www.inumc.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/unrelatedbusinessincome-1.pdf .

[18] Joint Committee on Taxation (2005), 100.

[19] United States Treasury Department, Bureau of Internal Revenue, “Supplement to Statistics of Income for 1946, Part 2,” October 1949, https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-soi/46eosupsec2.pdf .

[20] Hodge, “After 90 Years, It Is Time to Wean Credit Unions off Taxpayer Subsidies.”

[21] Internal Revenue Code of 1954, https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/STATUTE-68/pdf/STATUTE-68A-Pg1.pdf .

[22] U.S. Department of Commerce Bureau of the Census, Historical Statistics of the United States, Colonial Times to 1970, Part 1 , (Washington, DC, 1975), 224. Note: In 1909, U.S. GDP was $33.4 billion in current dollars.

[23] “NCCS Core Series Overview,” National Center for Charitable Statistics, https://nccs.urban.org/nccs/datasets/core/ .

[24] IRS, Form 990, Return of Organization Exempt from Income Tax, 2018 , Harvard Business School Publishing Corporation, https://apps.irs.gov/pub/epostcard/cor/043177990_201906_990_2021012817670018.pdf .

[25] Creative Testing Solutions, https://www.mycts.org/ .

[26] Battelle Memorial Institute, https://www.battelle.org/about-us .

[27] RTI International, https://www.rti.org/about-us .

[28] IRS, Form 990, Return of Organization Exempt from Income Tax, 2018 , Research Triangle Institute, https://apps.irs.gov/pub/epostcard/cor/560686338_201909_990_2020101517377917.pdf .

[29] Scott Hodge, “Nonprofits are Financially Healthy and Doing Big Business,” Tax Foundation, Oct. 6, 2023. https://taxfoundation.org/blog/501c3-nonprofit-revenue/ .

[31] Dress for Success, https://www.dressforsuccessqc.org/ .

[32] IRS, Form 990, Return of Organization Exempt from Income Tax, 2019, Navigate Affordable Housing Partners Inc., https://apps.irs.gov/pub/epostcard/cor/630985617_201912_990_2020110517414338.pdf .

[33] Vetter Senior Living, https://www.vetterseniorliving.com/we-believe/history/ .

[34] IRS, Form 990, Return of Organization Exempt from Income Tax, 2018, Vetter Senior Living, https://apps.irs.gov/pub/epostcard/cor/471108168_201906_990_2021012817669748.pdf .

[35] IRS, Form 990, Return of Organization Exempt from Income Tax, 2018 , Habitat for Humanity International Inc., https://apps.irs.gov/pub/epostcard/cor/911914868_201906_990_2020020617119545.pdf .

[36] IRS, Form 990, Return of Organization Exempt from Income Tax 2019, AARP Foundation, 2018 https://apps.irs.gov/pub/epostcard/cor/520794300_201912_990_2021022617763807.pdf .

[37] IRS, Form 990, Return of Organization Exempt from Income Tax, 2019, AARP, https://apps.irs.gov/pub/epostcard/cor/951985500_201912_990O_2022042920018144.pdf .

[38] Internal Revenue Service, “Social welfare organizations,” https://www.irs.gov/charities-non-profits/other-non-profits/social-welfare-organizations .

[39] Prairie Meadows, https://www.prairiemeadows.com/about-us/our-company .

[40] Desert Mountain Club Inc., https://www.desertmountain.com/membership-information/ .

[41] B.H. Meyer, “Fraternal Beneficiary Societies in the United States,” American Journal of Sociology 6:5 (March 1901): 646-661, https://www.jstor.org/stable/2762005 .

[42] Woodmen Life, https://www.woodmenlife.org/extras/ .

[43] Modern Woodmen, https://www.modernwoodmen.org/financial-planning/protection/ .

[44] Knights of Columbus, https://www.kofc.org/en/what-we-do/insurance/index.html .

[45] Cooperative Services Corporation, https://www.cooperative.com/cfc/pages/ncsc.aspx .

[46] National Rural Utilities Cooperative Finance Corporation, https://www.nrucfc.coop/content/nrucfc/en/about-cfc.html .

[47] Jeffrey Scott Tenenbaum, “Unrelated Business Income Tax (UBIT): A Comprehensive Overview for Nonprofits,” Business Law Today, November 2021, https://americanbar.org/groups/business_law/resources/business-law-today/2021-november/unrelated-business-income-tax/ .

[48] Department of the Treasury, Internal Revenue Service, Publication 598: Tax on Unrelated Business Income of Exempt Organizations , Mar. 22, 2021, https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/p598.pdf .

[49] Internal Revenue Service, Statistics of Income, Table 16: Nonprofit Charitable Organization and Domestic Private Foundation Information Returns, and Exempt Organization Business Income Tax Returns: Selected Financial Data, Expanded , https://www.irs.gov/statistics/soi-tax-stats-historical-table-16 .

[50] U.S. Department of Treasury, Internal Revenue Service, Publication 557, Tax-Exempt Status for Your Organization , revised January 2014, https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/p557.pdf .

What Is WikiLeaks & Why Was Founder Julian Assange in Prison?

Disclaimer: This article contains mentions of sexual abuse. Reader’s discretion is advised.

Australian Journalist Julian Assange , the founder of the whistleblower organization WikiLeaks, will now walk free after spending over five years in a UK prison. The legal saga started 14 years ago after WikiLeaks released classified US Military information. Assange is set to strike a plea deal with the US on one count of espionage that will allow him to return to Australia.

Reportedly, Assange founded Wikileaks, a multinational non-profit media organization that runs on public donation funds, in 2006. The platform analyzes and publishes “databases of censored or otherwise restricted materials involving wars, spying, and corruption.” The organization comprises of multiple international media outlets that work with it. These include co-publishers and research and funding partners.

According to Reuters , Julian Assange once called WikiLeaks “a giant library of the world’s most persecuted documents.” He claimed they “give asylum to these documents, we analyse them, we promote them and we obtain more.”

The hit 2023 documentary The Trust Fall: Julian Assange has previously chronicled the ordeal surrounding Assange’s imprisonment and WikiLeaks. Other works include We Steal Secrets: The Story of WikiLeaks, Julian Assange: Revolution Now, The Fifth Estate , and more.

Why was WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange in prison?

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has now agreed to plead guilty to a single count of US espionage that will free him from British imprisonment. Al Jazeera reported that Assange’s whistleblower organization has made a few controversial leaks since its establishment. However, it became controversial after releasing classified US military documents and videos from its 2000s wars in Iran and Afghanistan.

This leaked information, which came out in 2010, contained matters of prisoner abuse while in US custody, human rights violations, and civilian deaths. One such leak included a 2007 video of a US Apache helicopter attack in Baghdad. The incident killed several people, including two Reuters journalists.

According to Reuters, from 2010 to 2011, Julian Assange’s WikiLeaks released hundreds of thousands of documents. These comprised secret US military reports about the Afghanistan war and classified files about the Iraq war from 2004 to 2009. Other leaks contained thousands of unpublished US diplomatic cables. The US authorities called these leaks reckless and claimed they damaged national security while endangering the lives of their personnel.

Meanwhile, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange was facing a European investigation in Sweden. The court had ordered his arrest on rape, sexual molestation, and unlawful coercion allegations. This resulted in his arrest in Britain in December 2010. However, the charges were later dropped, following which he fled to Ecuador’s embassy. He feared that a US extradition might result in charges.

Al Jazeera reported that Assange remained secure in the Ecuadorian embassy for seven years. In 2019, he was forced out of the embassy and jailed in Belmarsh, London’s high-security facility. The journalist remained in prison for over five years until June 2024, when he reached a plea deal with the US.

WikiLeaks announced the plea deal in a statement that said they “published groundbreaking stories of government corruption and human rights abuses, holding the powerful accountable for their actions. As editor-in-chief, Julian paid severely for these principles, and for the people's right to know. As he returns to Australia, we thank all who stood by us, fought for us, and remained utterly committed in the fight for his freedom.”

According to a Reuters report, Assange fought his extradition to the US for five years and is finally free now. Several protests have taken place across many countries in support of Assange. His supporters have called WikiLeaks’ releases acts of free speech and journalism.

During his stint in Belmarsh, Assange married his longtime partner Stella, who went on to advocate for his release. The couple also share two children.

The post What Is WikiLeaks & Why Was Founder Julian Assange in Prison? appeared first on ComingSoon.net - Movie Trailers, TV & Streaming News, and More .

UN Tourism welcomes UAE-based New Perspective Media as new affiliate member

Dr. Karen Remo, CEO and Founder of New Perspective Media Group

The United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) has welcomed New Perspective Media (NPM Group) to its expanding network of affiliate members, alongside 38 other entities all over the world.

The new members represent a diverse range of backgrounds, including for-profit companies, non-government organizations, and education and research institutes, from all the regions: 6 from Africa, 10 from the Americas, 3 from Asia and the Pacific, 13 from Europe, and 7 from the Middle East.

The admission of these new members was officially endorsed during the 121st Session of the Executive Council, held in Barcelona, Spain, on June 10-11.

The UN Tourism Affiliate Membership aims to invigorate local tourism sectors and connect leading private entities within the largest network of its kind in the field of tourism. This network now comprises a total of 500 entities.

“We are grateful and thrilled to advance public-private cooperation through this affiliate membership under the United Nations World Tourism Organization, ” said Dr. Karen Remo, CEO and Founder of NPM Group and The Filipino Times.

“We are committed to UNWTO’s goal of enhancing new generation of partnerships with governments, civil society, academia, and the business community by promoting the the exchange of knowledge with a goal of contributing to the promotion of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals,” she added.

The UN Tourism, the specialized United Nations agency responsible for the promotion of tourism, has long considered the private sector to be an integral partner in fulfilling its general mandate of promoting sustainable development in tourism.

In addition, UN Tourism is the only agency of the United Nations that has private sector members that participate in the governance structure.

New Perspective Media – a group of international integrated marketing and communication agency based in Dubai, UAE has offices in the Asia-Pacific region – has been trusted by leading corporations and governments in the Middle East and South East Asia for the last 18 years.

As a destination management and private tourism promotions agency, NPM Group has collaborated with notable clients such as the Philippines’ Tourism Promotions Board, Hamburg Tourismus in Germany, Saudi Arabia’s Royal Commission of AlUla, and Cebu Pacific, one of the Philippines’ leading airlines.

NPM Group is also the parent company of The Filipino Times, the largest digital news agency for overseas Filipinos and the biggest free newspaper in the UAE.

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Rescuers seek to bring down bodies found on Japan’s Mount Fuji

Three bodies were found at the summit of Mount Fuji, Japan’s most famous mountain. One of the bodies had been brought down from the slopes but efforts to bring back the two other bodies were set to continue Friday or later, according to officials after a search was called off for Thursday because of forecasts for heavy rainfall.

FILE - The shadow of Mount Fuji is cast on clouds hanging below the summit Aug. 27, 2019, in Japan. Three bodies were found inside a crater at the summit of Mount Fuji, Japan’s most famous mountain, with one of them already brought down from the slopes, police said Thursday, June 27, 2024. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong, File)

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TOKYO (AP) — Three bodies were found inside a crater at the summit of Mount Fuji, Japan’s most famous mountain, with one of them already brought down from the slopes, police said Thursday.

The identities of the people, including gender or age, were not confirmed. An effort to bring back the two other bodies will continue Friday or later, depending on weather conditions, they said. A search was called off for Thursday because of forecasts for heavy rainfall.

It’s unclear whether the three people were climbing the 3,776-meter (12,388-foot) mountain together, as the bodies were found several meters apart.

The official climbing season had not yet started when the climbers entered the mountain from the Shizuoka Prefecture side.

Japanese media reports showed a vehicle with one of the bodies driving into a police station in Shizuoka Prefecture. The rescue team had been searching for a 53-year-old man for whom a missing person report was filed.

Separately, Kyodo News service said professional climber Keita Kurakami, 38, died in a hospital after being found by police while climbing Fuji from the Yamanashi Prefecture side of the mountain.

Fuji can be climbed from both Yamanashi and Shizuoka prefectures. The climbing season kicks in for Yamanashi starting July 1.

Mount Fuji, made famous in ukiyoe, or woodblock prints, of 18th and 19th Century Edo Era masters Katsushika Hokusai and Utagawa Hiroshige, is a popular tourist destination .

Experts warn it can get extremely cold, even in the summer, and proper gear, climbing boots and clothing are crucial. Trekkers are also at risk of altitude sickness if they ascend too quickly.

The picturesque Fuji has long been an iconic symbol of Japan, with its gracefully sweeping slopes and white icy cap that stand out amid tranquil lakes and rice fields.

As many as 300,000 people climb Fuji every year, and watching the sunrise from the mountaintop is coveted as a spiritual experience. But worries have been growing lately about overcrowding from the influx of tourists .

The town of Fujikawaguchiko in Yamanashi erected a large black screen along a sidewalk to block the view of Mount Fuji to discourage photo-snapping crowds.

Yuri Kageyama is on X: https://twitter.com/yurikageyama