Kenneth Copeland Ministries property tax exemption-aircraft

[Famspear]

From the Associated Press, via the Houston Chronicle, on 8 December 2008:

Tax-exempt status denied for televangelist's jet

FORT WORTH, Texas — A Tarrant [i.e., Tarrant County, Texas] Appraisal District review board ruled Monday that Kenneth Copeland Ministries' $3.6 million jet does not have tax-exempt status.

The district denied a protest filed by the televangelist's attorneys because the ministry refused to release salaries of its directors, including Copeland, his wife and others ministers.

David Middlebrook, an attorney for Copeland, said the ministry, also known as Eagle Mountain International Church, will consider its legal options but declined to elaborate. The jet is a 1998 Cessna Bravo 550, which seats nine.

Another Copeland attorney, Rick Duncan, said revealing ministers' salaries should be a concern to all churches in the county.

But Tarrant Appraisal District employees started asking for the salary information from churches this year and said others have complied, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram reported in its Monday online edition.

Other Copeland aircraft already with tax-exempt status are not expected to be affected, officials said.

Copeland is among six large televangelist organizations targeted in a Senate Finance Committee investigation into allegations of questionable spending and lax financial accountability. All six preach the prosperity gospel, which holds that believers are destined to flourish spiritually, physically and financially — and share the wealth with others.

All have denied wrongdoing, but some had provided financial information to the committee. Copeland fought back the hardest, refusing to answer most questions from the senator who launched the inquiry. Copeland also asked for an Internal Revenue Service audit, which would keep information private, and launched a Web site aimed at "protecting religious freedoms."

Copeland's ministry on a 1,500-acre campus behind an iron gate includes a church, a private airstrip, a hangar for the ministry's aircraft and a $6 million church-owned lakefront mansion.

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/tx/6153774.html