Under Texas Law, Televangelist Kenneth Copeland Legally Avoids Paying Taxes on Mansion
From www.newsweek.com
2021-12-18 05:00:02
Excerpt:
Televangelist Kenneth Copeland is able to use a loophole in the Texas state law to legally avoid paying property taxes on his $7 million, 18,000-square-foot mansion near Forth Worth, it was revealed Wednesday.
This is despite Copeland reportedly being the wealthiest pastor in the United States, worth an estimated $750 million.
An exclusive investigation from the Houston Chronicle detailed how Copeland is able to skip out on $150,000 in annual property taxes. The loophole involves registering his Tarrant County-based mansion as a pastor’s home.
Under Texas law, pastors’ houses, known as parsonages, are eligible for a complete exemption from state property taxes. Despite this, officials have stated that while what Copeland is doing may be legal, the law was likely not written with his type of extreme wealth in mind.
“It definitely looks out of place and unusual compared to other parsonages we have,” Jeff Law, the chief appraiser of Tarrant County, told the Chronicle. “But from what I can…