[Vision2020] 07-10-04 Daily News: Consideration of church tax exemption delayed

[Art Deco aka W. Fox]

Consideration of church tax exemption delayed


Hillary Hamm, [Daily News]

Two Latah County women met with county commissioners Friday in an effort to
persuade them to revoke the tax-exempt status of New St. Andrews College and a
Christ Church building.
Rosemary Huskey and Saundra Lund argued that NSA and church facilities at Anselm
House are for-profit and cannot be considered tax-exempt organizations.

"We believe there is insufficient evidence" to support the college and church's
exemption status, Lund said.

On May 3, county commissioners serving as the Board of Equalization voted to
change the college exemption status from 89 percent to 88.91 percent exempt. The
church office space at Anselm House on Fifth Street was increased from 81
percent to 92 percent exempt.

Commissioners, sitting again as the Board of Equalization on Friday, closed the
hearing after an hour and a half and decided to begin deliberations at 8 a.m.
Monday. The delay will allow commissioners time to examine documents provided by
Huskey and Lund.

"With this information, I would like to have a little time to read this before I
make a decision," Commissioner Jack Nelson said.

Commissioner Paul Kimmell, a member of Christ Church and a member of the NSA
Advisory Council, recused himself to avoid the appearance of a conflict of
interest.

Nelson and Commissioner Tom Stroschein chose to meet early Monday because Board
of Equalizations statewide must close at midnight Monday. If the commissioners
cannot reach a decision Monday, they will have to request an extension from the
Idaho Tax Commission.

Friday's meeting was a continuation from Tuesday, when the board decided it was
inappropriate to conduct the meeting without a church or college representative
present.

Greg Dickison, representing NSA and Christ Church, said he had little to say
because there was limited time to prepare a defense for his clients.

"The only thing stated in this protest is that there was inaccurate and
incomplete information," Dickison said. "There are answers to these, but I'm not
prepared to (answer) these at this time."

Lund questioned the tax-exempt status of the NSA building, in particular the
college's bookstore, which she said is not nonprofit or educational.

"There is nothing to prove it meets the nonprofit status," she said.

Huskey said the Anselm House, which houses Canon Press and Christ Church
offices, is not used strictly for church purposes. The press, which prints books
often unrelated to the church, reached the $1 million mark in revenue in 2000
and should not be considered nonprofit.

"This is not an insignificant amount of money," Huskey said.

She also raised questions regarding using church e-mail to support church
members running for political office.

Michael Curley, a Moscow lawyer representing Huskey and Lund, said the church
and school don't have a federal 501-C3 nonprofit status.

"There are no external audits to verify their nonprofit claim," Curley said.
"Until those can be proved, we think the tax-exemption status should be
revoked."

Dickison noted that the Idaho Tax Commission granted NSA and Anselm House
tax-exempt status in 2003.

Latah County Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Doug Whitney suggested the
commissioners follow an "all or nothing" strategy while reevaluating the
tax-exempt status of the church and college.

He said commissioners should choose to exempt the facilities on a per-parcel
basis.

On May 3, commissioners decided to break up the facilities based on use. Zumé
Bakery and Cafe, located in the NSA building, is taxable property, as is a
second floor choir room and bookkeeper's office. In the Anselm House, 725 square
feet of the space rented to the Association of Classical and Christian Schools
is taxable property.

Idaho tax exemption codes "can be interpreted in many ways and can easily be
denied," Whitney said. "It's important to place importance with every word in
the statute. All of those have to be construed very carefully."

Huskey said the protest is not intended to attack tax-exempt churches or schools
in Latah County other than NSA and Christ Church.

"The BOE needs to carefully scrutinize the use of those buildings," she said.
"We're looking at the whole operation."

Dickison seemed nonchalant about Huskey and Lund's accusations. He said the
commissioners should have asked the right questions the first time around rather
than allowing a protest hearing.

"The board should have asked for more information," he said. "I don't know what
we did for NSA, but whatever it was, was enough to satisfy the board."

Lund said information provided at the May 3 meeting about the use of NSA and
Christ Church facilities was inaccurate and misleading.

Nelson said he does not believe NSA and Christ Church representatives withheld
information from the board.

"I think that Christ Church and New St. Andrews furnished us with the
information furnished by other (similar) groups," he said. "I felt at the time
that I had enough information that I normally would have. Maybe I need to be
more cautious of that."


Hillary Hamm can be reached

at (208) 882-5561, ext. 228, or by

e-mail at hhamm at dnews.com.


-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://mailman.fsr.com/pipermail/vision2020/attachments/20040710/9bb16689/attachment.htm