A small South Texas church could owe up to $10,000 in back taxes on two church-owned properties unless a county authority restores the facilities’ tax exempt status.
Klegburg County Tax Assessor Tina Flores removed the property tax exemption on two buildings owned by University Baptist Church in Kingsville – a house where the church’s youth minister lived and a former nightclub the church was using for a variety of community outreach ministries.
The residence was used for youth Bible studies as an editing studio for the church’s tape and cable broadcast ministry, as well as providing lodging for the student minister, said Jerry Tanner, pastor.
The other building was “a beer joint that went bankrupt and had been donated to us to use for religious purposes,” Tanner explained.
The church used it for community classes ranging from aerobics and martial arts to sculpture and archery. In addition, another Baptist church has been using the building for worship.
Tanner contested the denial of tax exemption by the tax appraisal district but said officials told him the residence was ineligible for tax exemption because the youth minister was a college student, not an ordained or licensed minister.
The multiuse facility was denied tax-exempt status because it was used for a Christian exercise program, and a tax exemption would give the not-for-profit aerobics program an unfair competitive advantage over other local, for profit exercise facilities, he said.
The Texas tax code says a house is tax exempt if it is “used exclusively as a residence for those individuals whose principal occupation is to serve in the clergy of the religious organization.”
The code also says real estate owned by a church is tax exempt if it is “used primarily as a place of regular religious worship, and is reasonably necessary for engaging in religious worship.”
(ABP)
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