The Illinois Supreme court is deliberating on what qualifies for multiple hospitals in the state to be exempt from paying property taxes. The issue is whether a non-profit hospital would be exempt from property taxes, without proving that it is used solely for charitable purposes. A law passed in 2012 allowed nonprofit hospitals an easy way to be exempt from paying those property taxes, which include a number of services provided outside the building. Attorney Kenneth Flaxman stated in court that hospitals are unconstitutionally dodging property taxes because of that law. He stated, “In every single instance, it provides for exemptions that are not based off of any considerations of the constitutionally mandated charitable use requirement.” Municipalities would stand to gain hundreds of millions of dollars in property taxes should hospitals lose their exemption status. That figure is roughly $30-billion annual in funds that hospitals don’t pay in taxes. A circuit court judge rejected an exemption challenge back in 2015, with an appellate court affirming the ruling in 2016.