(a) In general. Under section 513(e), the furnishing of a service listed in section 501(e)(1)(A) by a hospital to one or more other hospitals will not constitute unrelated trade or business if—
(1) The service is provided solely to hospitals that have facilities to serve not more than 100 inpatients,
(2) The service would, if performed by the recipient hospital, constitute an activity consistent with that hospital's exempt purposes, and
(3) The service is provided at a fee not in excess of actual cost, including straight line depreciation and a reasonable rate of return on the capital goods used to provide the service. For purposes of this section, a rate of return on capital goods will be considered reasonable provided that it does not exceed, on an annual basis, the percentage described below which is based on the average of the rates of interest on special issues of public debt obligations issued to the Federal Hospital Insurance Trust Fund for each of the months included in the taxable year of the hospital duringwhich the captial goods are used in providing the service. Determinations as to the cost of services and the applicable rate of return should be made as prescribed by 42 U.S.C. 1395x(v)(1) (A) and (B) and the regulations thereunder (permitting a health care facility to be reimbursed under the Medicare program for the reasonable cost of (its) services, including, in the case of certain proprietary facilities, a reasonable return on equity capital). For taxable years beginning on or before May 14, 1986, the rate of return shall be one and one-half times the average of the rates of interest on public debt obligations described above which were in effect on or before April 20, 1983.
(b) Hospital defined. As used in this section the word hospital means a hospital described in section 170(b)(1)(A)(iii).
(c) Example. The provisions of this section are illustrated by the following example:
A large metropolitan hospital provides various services to other hospitals. The hospital furnishes a purchasing service to hosptials N and O, a data processing service to hospitals R and S, and a food service to hospitals X and Y. All the hospitals are described in section 170(b)(1)(A)(iii). All the hospitals have facilities to serve not more than 100 inpatients except hospital N. The services are furnished at cost to all hospitals except that hospital R is charged a fee in excess of cost for its use of the data processing service. The purchasing service constitutes unrelated trade or business because it is not provided solely to hospitals having facilities to serve not more than 100 inpatients.
The data processing service constitutes unrelated trade or business because it is provided at a fee in excess of cost. The food service satisfies all three requirements of paragraph (a) of this section and does not constitute unrelated trade or business.
(d) Effective date. Section 513(e) and this section apply to taxable years beginning after December 31, 1953.
The preliminary Code is a preliminary release of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 (the "Code") by the Office of the Law Revision Counsel and is subject to further revision before it is released again as a final version. The source of the preliminary Code used in TouchTax is available here: https://uscode.house.gov/download/download.shtml. The Code is a consolidation and codification by subject matter of the general and permanent laws of the U.S. prepared by the Office of the Law Revision Counsel of the U.S. House of Representatives. The Treasury Regulations are a codification of the general and permanent rules published in the Federal Register by the departments and agencies of the federal government. The version of the Treasury Regulations available within TouchTax is part of the Electronic Code of Federal Regulations which is not an official legal edition of the Code of Federal Regulations but is an editorial compilation of CFR material and Federal Register amendments produced by the National Archives and Records Administration's Office of the Federal Register (OFR) and the Government Publishing Office. The source of the CFR used in TouchTax is available here: https://www.govinfo.gov/bulkdata/ECFR/title-26. Those using TouchTax for legal research should verify their results against the printed versions of the Code and Treasury Regulations. TouchTax is copyright 2024 by Com-Lab (Mobile). Learn more at http://touchtax.edrich.de.