Missouri Students Association Senate passed a resolution in support of tax exemptions for donations to not-for-profit student housing Wednesday.

The resolution is in support of United States House Bill 1327, the Collegiate Housing and Infrastructure Act. The bill would give a tax break to donations to housing locations like fraternity and sorority houses, as well as religious housing such as the Christian Campus House.

The bill would entice alumni to donate money, which would in turn lead to safer housing for students, said MSA President Xavier Billingsley, who authored the bill.

“It is not just solely a subsidation (sic) piece,” Billingsley said during the meeting. “It is a piece to advocate for safer housing in these diverse situations.”

Although Billingsley talked at length about how CHIA would make fraternity and sorority houses safer, there is no specific language of the bill that explicitly mentions safety.

United States House Bill 3250, the Honorable Stephanie Tubbs Jones College Fire Prevention Act, would create a grant system to compensate fraternity and sorority houses for updating sprinkler systems and other fire safety equipment. This bill would pay fraternities and sororities up to half of the cost of these updates.

The College Fire Prevention Act is not included in the language of MSA Bill #51-40.

Although the bill passed with a vote of 20 to 12, with eight abstentions, four senators spoke in opposition to the bill. Aside from Billingsley’s authorship speech, no senators spoke in affirmation of the bill.

Academic Affairs chairman Ben Levin said he thinks Greek Life organizations should not be considered “not-for-profit” as they are in the House bill.

“Tax exceptions are generally granted for one of three reasons: for religious purposes, for academic purposes and for charities,” Levin said. “Greek organizations’ primary purpose is social.”

At MU, at least 39 sororities and fraternities have houses that would qualify under CHIA. The Christian Campus House would be the only other “not-for-profit” student housing unit that would qualify under the bill.

Billingsley said since donations to residence halls can be exempt from taxes, donations to Greek Life student housing should also be exempted.

“If you donate to a residence hall, you would get a huge tax break,” Billingsley said. “If you donate to a Greek house, you would not get a tax break.”

MSA senator Matt Kalish said he did not support the bill.

“I don’t think it would be very wise to add a tax cut to such a small percentage of the population,” he said during Wednesday’s meeting.

MSA senator Benjamin Bolin, who also spoke in opposition to the bill, said if donations to organizations such as the Red Hat Society and veterans’ organizations do not get tax exceptions, donations for Greek Life housing also should not.

“All these other social institutions don’t get these same sort of rights and I don’t know why fraternities should get these exceptions,” Bolin said during the Senate meeting.

Levin said just because Greek Life organizations engage in philanthropy does not mean donations to those organizations should be exempt from taxes.

“Lots of things engage in charity,” Levin said. “Corporations donate to charitable causes and we don’t think of appropriations as charity.”