MOSCOW, Idaho — A controversial local church and the college founded by its leaders heard two local women question their status as tax-exempt nonprofit organizations at a special hearing Friday night.
Though the Latah County Board of Equalization decided to continue its deliberation on whether to revoke the tax-free status until Monday morning, more than 70 people at the hourlong meeting heard the women and their attorney detail why Christ Church, which has about 300 adult members, and its auxiliary trust, New Saint Andrews College, should have to pay property taxes. The church and the small religious college inhabit three buildings downtown. A portion of the buildings are rented for commercial purposes. One houses the Zume bakery.
Because parts of the properties are used for commercial purposes, the rest of the property cannot be considered tax-exempt under two state statutes for churches and schools, said the board’s legal counsel, Prosecutor Doug Whitney. He said the properties must be used exclusively for religious or educational purposes. “These two are all-or-nothing statutes,” Whitney said.
Anselm House, the church’s headquarters on Fifth Street, was appraised at a market value of $423,100 in 2000. New Saint Andrews College is in two connected buildings on Main Street and West Fourth that it bought for $612,500 in 2002, according to the county Assessor’s Office. About 90 percent of the church and college property is currently exempt from property taxes.
But when the Board of Equalization decided to exempt the buildings in May, it was given incomplete and inaccurate information about the church, the school and the nature of what they were doing in the buildings, said Rosemary Huskey and Saundra Lund, who filed the tax-status protest in June. This was the second hearing in what some in the community are calling a culture-driven attack on a religious organization.
Huskey and Lund, who both work at home and consider themselves community activists, say the church’s and Pastor Doug Wilson’s controversial positions on issues including women’s rights, spanking children at school, homosexuality and slavery caused them to look more carefully at the organization. But, they said, the real issue is whether a large entity that includes a publishing company, a college and a college bookstore is hiding behind its status as a church to avoid paying taxes.
First they addressed the school as a nonprofit. New Saint Andrews is not recognized by the Internal Revenue Service as a tax-exempt organization, Lund said. “There are questions that should have been raised” during the Board of Equalization meeting in May, she said. “We believe there is no verifiable proof of the nonprofit status of NSA college.”
Though the school is registered with the state as a nonprofit religious organization, “it really doesn’t mean anything at all,” she said, adding that state registry is easily obtained and does not confer tax status or accreditation.
The two women also questioned whether the church is in violation of its tax-exempt status. The board may have known that the church had a publishing arm, Canon Press, housed in Anselm House, but it was likely unaware that it had $1 million in sales in 2000, Huskey said. She offered as evidence what appeared to be an e-mail sent from the church office to Christ Church members.
She pointed out that the press sells books that didn’t appear central to the mission of the church. One book listed on the press Web site is “Discovering Wine: A refreshingly unfussy beginner’s guide to finding, tasting, judging wine.”
Huskey said that out of the 108 books published by Canon Press, 30 percent are written by Wilson. She said Wilson and another author sit on the Canon Press board and earn royalties, as well. Her evidence was a photocopy of what appeared to be a contract between Wilson and Canon Press in which Wilson is promised 10 percent of the gross sales on a particular book.
Finally, Huskey cited several occasions in which the church e-mail system was used to solicit help for church members running for office. It is a violation of tax-free status for a church to participate in a political race. Christ Church members received messages urging various forms of support for former Moscow city Councilman John Guyer and current county Commissioner Paul Kimmell. The church didn’t offer similar access to their opponents, Huskey said.
Kimmell, who normally is a voting member of the Board of Equalization, recused himself Friday issuing a statement that he wanted to avoid the appearance of a conflict of interest. He did vote on the church and the school’s tax-exempt status in May. He said he was not disqualified from voting by the prosecutor.
Although Wilson was out of town at a religious conference Friday, his family and other members of the college and the church attended the hearing. A few have said they think the church is being targeted because a small group in the community doesn’t like their beliefs or their pastor. Wilson opposes feminism, preaches that homosexuality is a sin and has written a book alleging that Southern slaves were not as oppressed as Americans have been led to believe. “This is not about money, it’s about, ‘Get Doug Wilson,’” said Dave Glasebrook, a Christ Church member who says he frequently attends Board of Equalization meetings. “Where’s religious freedom?”
After hearing from Huskey and Lund and from their attorney, Mike Curley, the Board of Equalization members turned to Greg Dickison, the attorney for the college and the church. “There are answers to these questions, answers that show they qualify for property tax exemption,” Dickison said, adding that he was not prepared to respond because he had only just heard the accusations. “We have not presented anything inaccurate or incomplete to the board,” he said.
As the hearing drew to a close, board member Tom Stroschein said issues were brought up that might have some merit and he wanted to review them further. “I have to admit it was my first go-round on the Board of Equalization,” he said of his decision in May.
His colleague, Jack Nelson, said that when he voted on the church and college’s tax status three months ago, he believed had the same amount of information he normally gets from other religious organizations. “I’m saying maybe I need to be more cautious of that,” he said.
The board members agreed to take up the issue and may vote on whether to revoke tax-exempt status for the church and school properties at 8 a.m. Monday.
