SOUTH BEND — The University of Notre Dame would be among a small group of private colleges nationwide required to pay taxes on investment earnings under the new federal tax bill, a provision that could cost the university up to $9 million per year.
The bill calls for Notre Dame and other colleges to pay a 1.4 percent annual tax on those earnings.
Public colleges and universities are exempt from the provision, which was included in the Republican-backed tax bill.
It likely would cost Notre Dame $6 million to $9 million per year, said Paul Browne, the university’s vice president for public affairs and communications.
The specific rules about how the measure is to be applied would be set by U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin.
Notre Dame’s endowment pool returned 12.6 percent for the fiscal year ending June 30, 2017, ending with a value of $11.8 billion, the university announced in October. That’s up from $10.4 billion at the end of the prior fiscal year.
That endowment pool includes about $9.6 billion that is Notre Dame’s university endowment, plus more than $2 billion belonging to other Holy Cross-affiliated institutions, including Saint Mary’s College, the University of Portland (Ore.), King’s College (Pa.) and the Congregation of Holy Cross religious order. Notre Dame invests and manages the investments for those other institutions.