Plaintiff, a nonprofit corporation operating a home for elderly people on a “life care contract” basis, brought this action to recover taxes paid under protest for the tax year 1946-1947. It claimed that it was a charitable organization devoting its property exclusively to charitable purposes and so entitled to the benefit of the recently adopted welfare exemption. (Cal. Const., art. XIII, § lc; Rev. & Tax. Code, § 214.) With certain exceptions—a parcel of vacant land, some acreage leased for commercial purposes, and a small item of solvent credits—the trial court adjudicated the exemption claim in plaintiff’s favor and entered judgment accordingly for a tax refund. From such judgment defendant county has appealed, contending that the record does not sustain the conclusion that plaintiff was functioning as a charitable institution within the meaning of the welfare tax exemption law. Upon the undisputed facts, we have concluded that defendant’s contention cannot be sustained.
At the trial the only evidence introduced was that offered by plaintiff. It appears that plaintiff was incorporated in 1908 and received as a gift certain land in Chula Vista—some 15 acres—and the buildings then on it. Subsequent buildings were donated, and in 1916 a trust fund of $200,000 was *791 created. It is conceded that plaintiff is a nonprofit corporation organized for the purpose of providing a home for aged people at its site in Chula Vista, and that the property in dispute, with the exception of the portion hereinafter mentioned, is used exclusively for such purpose and is irrevocably dedicated thereto; that all of its income—whether from charges to inmates, investments, gifts or donations—is used entirely in the maintenance and operation of the home—that the members of its board of directors serve without compensation, and that the compensation paid to its employees is “fair and reasonable. ’ ’ But regardless of these qualifying factors, defendant cites plaintiff’s “manner of operation” as determinative of its ineligibility for the tax benefit applicable to a “charitable institution” within the meaning of the welfare exemption law.
Applicants for admission to the home must have attained the age of 69 years, be in good health, and meet the approval of the board of directors—including consideration over a three months’ probationary period. Prior to November 1, 1944, each applicant, in addition to paying a fixed fee for maintenance at the home, was required to execute a trust agreement whereby three-fifths of the applicant’s estate would go to the home upon death of the applicant. A new policy was adopted after said date eliminating the trust agreement as an entry requirement, and at the same time the minimum fee for admission to the home was fixed at $5,500. By the terms of the life care contract made with the applicant, the home agreed to furnish room, board, and other services.
As documentary evidence in its behalf and representing the “last figures available at the time [the exemption] claim was filed” (Code Civ. Proc., § 1963, subds. 28, 32), plaintiff introduced a financial report for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1945. According to that accounting record, 21 new residents were admitted during the period covered, 16 of them under the policy of charging a minimum fee of $5,500 as established in November, 1944, the average fee being $6,264.04. The exact amount of the admission fee of each applicant was computed actuarily and also depended on the applicant’s choice of accommodations. According to one of plaintiff’s directors, the division as to the source of plaintiff’s income was fixed at 35 per cent from interest on the endowment fund and donations and 65 per cent from admission fees. Certain other schedules introduced in evidence clearly showed that over 25 per cent of plaintiff’s gross cash income, as well as its *792 land and buildings, came from sources other than the residents of the home. The trial court found that the total amounts received by plaintiff from its inmates and from the endowment fund have always been insufficient to pay operating expenses of the home, and that the deficit has been met through voluntary gifts and contributions from persons not inmates of the home. The same director, a certified public accountant who prepared all of plaintiff’s tax reports, also testified that plaintiff had been exempted from payment of all federal social security and income taxes, as well as from state unemployment insurance taxes, and a finding was so made. The court further found that the recited facts attesting to plaintiff’s method of operation prevailed during the taxable year in question, 1946-1947, and “were true when plaintiff’s claim for exemption was filed and [denied] by the county officials.” Such finding was in accord with the testimony of plaintiff’s director attesting to the continued level of service and “policy” of operation maintained at the home “from the inception of the institution as I know it” to “the present [time] ” (date of trial, January, 1948).
As discussed in the opinion filed by this court in certain consolidated hospital cases
(Cedars of Lebanon Hospital
v.
County of Los Angeles,
L. A. No. 20610,
ante,
p. 729 [
The concept of charity is not confined to the relief of the needy and destitute, for ‘ ‘ aged people require care and attention apart from financial assistance, and the supply of this care and attention is as much a charitable and benevolent purpose as the relief of their financial wants.”
(Estate of
*793
Henderson,
Defendant’s challenge of plaintiff’s denomination as a charitable institution and the use of its property for charitable purposes stems primarily from the fact that plaintiff does not extend free services to the poor, but the welfare exemption law as above quoted makes no such requirement as a qualifying factor for the tax exemption, and if such condition were intended, appropriate language to that effect could readily have been adopted. Rather, the welfare exemption law as here involved appears to rest on a concept of charity in its ordinary sense. Consistent with such interpretation, the controlling consideration in determining whether an institution such as plaintiff should be classified as a charitable one is not whether a few or all of the recipients of its benefits may make reasonable contributions toward defraying the cost of such benefits, but whether such contributions as are made do not exceed what is required for the maintenance of the institution at a reasonable standard and are devoted to the purposes for which the institution was founded, which purposes, in the absence of the required contributions, would clearly be deemed to be charitable. If such is the situation, then the institution is no less a charity because of the receipt of such contributions, and within such concept plaintiff properly claims a tax-exempt status under the welfare exemption law.
The record contains abundant evidence that approximately 35 per cent of plaintiff’s income came from interest on the endowment fund and from donations, while only about 65 per cent came from fees of the inmates. Moreover, it appears *794 from the testimony of one of the directors of the home, as »above mentioned, that the rates were set so that the amounts received from the inmates “together with income from the endowment and from other sources” would equal expenses. In such state of the record, defendant unavailingly attacks the trial court’s finding to the effect that the inmates of the home do not pay the full cost of their support and maintenance, and that in fixing the rates to be charged “the directors ... do not endeavor to [make] a profit or even to meet all operating expenses, but rather endeavor to set rates as low as possible without creating a deficit so large that [it] cannot [be met] by gifts and contributions which can reasonably be expected.”
While it is true that each applicant for admission to the home is required to pay an entry fee in return for his care, it is also true that plaintiff contributes a substantial proportion of the annual cash expenditures, as well as the use of its properties for such care. Under these circumstances, the mere payment of such fees by the inmates does not militate against plaintiff’s status as a charitable organization. Nor does it matter that plaintiff requires the applicant to the home to submit to a three-month probationary period and meet the approval of the board of directors rather than permit the home to be open to the admission of any individual upon demand. Such stipulation only suggests an attempt to maintain the home in a manner which would engender harmony of association among the elderly inmates rather than endanger their peaceful, congenial living conditions through the introduction of discordant elements.
As was pertinently said in
Estate of Henderson, supra,
Such adjudication of plaintiff’s status in relation to the welfare tax exemption likewise comprehends that portion of its property used to house its personnel as that issue is here presented. Thus, there is considerable testimony in the record showing that those of the personnel living on plaintiff’s premises do so as a matter of institutional necessity. In this regard it must be remembered that a prerequisite for entrance to the home as a resident is the 69-year age qualification, indicating the need of adequate personnel to care for such elderly
*796
persons on the basis of 24-hpur service. All of this testimony as to the institutional necessity of plaintiff’s furnishing of housing accommodation for certain personnel stands uncontradicted in the record. Similar considerations were discussed in certain opinions filed with regard to the tax-exempt status of a nurses’ home and the housing of other alleged essential personnel as a necessary adjunct to a hospital
(Cedars of Lebanon Hospital
v.
County of Los Angeles,
L. A. No. 20610,
ante,
p. 729 [
It therefore follows that the trial court correctly determined that plaintiff is a charitable institution and entitled to exemption from taxation on all the property in dispute.
The judgment is affirmed.
Gibson, C. J., Shenk, J., Edmonds, J., Carter, J., Traynor, J., and Schauer, J., concurred.