Florida church suit says tax assessment illegal

Florida church suit says tax assessment illegal

A lawsuit pitting a Bay County (Florida) church and the county's property appraiser over the office's refusal to exempt the church's parsonage from taxes will continue in area circuit court -- but now amended to include the case for state and federal constitutional protections in the church's complaint.

The exemption for Faith Christian Church's parsonage was allegedly denied by county Property Appraiser Rick Barnett because it was not used for a religious purpose, something which Faith Christian Church denies, pointing to Bible studies, counseling sessions, and committee and training meetings.

Liberty Counsel chief counsel Eric Stanley, plaintiff counsel, says the amended complaint makes a case that the assessment is illegal. "We are alleging that the denial of the tax exemption violates the free-exercise clause of the United States Constitution as well as the Florida constitution's free-exercise protection of the church," he explains.

Those protections include the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act (RLUIPA) and Florida's Religious Freedom Restoration Act, provisions under both the U.S. and Florida constitutions, and other state statutes, says the Liberty Counsel attorney. "Our argument is ... that all of those together protect the right of the church to have a parsonage, and to have that parsonage be declared tax exempt as a religious purpose," he says.

Stanley says the amended complaint had to be granted in court instead of by consent agreement because of opposition by the appraiser's attorney. He says it is the second example of a routine procedure that Barnett refuses to allow -- after denying the standard practice throughout Florida of tax exemption for church property used as a parsonage, because Faith Christian's wasn't adjacent to a house of worship.

A statement from Liberty Counsel alleges that no other church in Bay County has been held exempt -- and that the power of government to arbitrarily decide which church property is taxable, would be "the power to censor, to control and ultimately to destroy." It also notes that Barnett has assessed property taxes on the church parsonage since 2004.

"What we have here is a property appraiser that's out of control," says Liberty Counsel's chief counsel. "This is the only parsonage that he has denied tax exemption for in Bay County."

Stanley says it is important to send a message to property appraisers throughout the state that they should not tread on the province of the church to determine what is or is not used for religious purposes on their property. If property appraisers are given that freedom, he cautions, churches will gain exemptions "only at the whim of government officials seeking more revenue."