04/17/2025

Revoking a University's Tax-exempt Status

Here's what to know about the law

The Trump administration is moving to revoke Harvard University’s tax-exempt status, a designation that has allowed the Ivy League school, like the vast majority of universities, churches and charities, to avoid paying federal income tax.

President Donald Trump first made the threat in a Truth Social post Tuesday, proposing that “perhaps” Harvard should lose the status and instead be taxed as a “political entity if it keeps pushing political, ideological and terrorist-inspired/supporting ‘sickness?’"*

The Trump administration's move, first reported by CNN and confirmed by The Washington Post on Wednesday evening, is an escalation in the tug of war between the administration and Harvard over demands for the school to make extensive changes to its governance, admissions and hiring practices. Losing the tax-exempt status would be another financial blow to the nation’s wealthiest college, which is already facing a multibillion-dollar federal funding freeze.

Please select this link to read the complete article from The Washington Post.

*Grammatical corrections related to capitalization and punctuation corrected by OSAP.