“The law was never intended to give breaks to millionaires and multimillionaires,” said Pete Evans, president of the Trinity Foundation, a nonprofit dedicated to bringing more accountability and transparency to religious organizations. The only limit on the dollar value churches can exempt resides in the imagination of pastors like Copeland. Yet even in that elite company, Copeland’s tax-free clergy residence stands out as an opulent illustration of the lengths the law allows religious organizations to go in claiming the tax break.
At least two dozen were worth over $1 million even using the artificially low values that exempt properties typically carry. Ī months-long Houston Chronicle investigation of ministers’ tax-free residences found no shortage of extravagant homes in high-dollar locales.
#KENNETH COPELAND MARRIED THREE TIMES SERIES#
You can read previous installments of the series at /unfairburden. Previous installments of this series focused on the state's biggest corporate tax giveaway, which has helped businesses cut more than $10 billion from their property taxes, and on a pair of obscure laws that let cities and counties give limitless grants. Texas law allows for billions of dollars in questionable tax breaks for a range of interests, from the well-connected to big corporations to prosperous churches while everyday Texans struggle with job losses, stagnant wages and the economic fallout from the pandemic. This story is the fourth of a four-part series on property taxes and religious organizations across Texas, a follow-up to our yearlong Unfair Burden investigation. That means Copeland’s church gets a pass on what would otherwise be an annual property tax bill exceeding $150,000 - money that other local taxpayers must backfill to cover the cost of schools, police and firefighters. Under a little-known statute that county appraisers say is too vague and permissive, the $7 million mansion owned by Copeland’s Eagle Mountain International Church is considered a parsonage - a clergy residence - qualifying for a 100 percent tax break. What he didn’t mention is that his heavenly plans are being underwritten by Texas taxpayers. “You may think that house is too big,” Copeland told the believers’ convention. Her vision was vast: Rising up three stories and sporting white columns in front, the six-bedroom, six-bath estate on the shores of an exclusive lake community outside of Fort Worth has enough room to fit nearly four basketball courts - more than 18,000 square feet of living space in all.