Churches being levied on their number of worshipers

by Diann Noles

Mission, Kansas, a suburb of Kansas City, has a new twist on taxes – a fee that charges churches based on the number of worshipers and their number of trips to church each year. In this mid-sized, mid-America city usually associated with conservative and pro-Christian viewpoints and policies, this fee has caused an uproar among area churches and other nonprofit groups, resulting in a lawsuit against the city by two of the churches.

Officially established by the Mission City Council in August 2010 to pay for road projects, the Transportation Utility Fee (TUF) charges residents and businesses a fee based on estimated usage over time.

Homeowners must pay an annual fee of $72, while some businesses such as Target stores are charged up to $65,000. The fees are assessed on properties that are considered “developed,” defined as such because they have improvements such as parking lots, buildings, or landscaping. Basically, developed properties include anything that isn’t a vacant lot.

At a town hall meeting last year regarding the fee, Mission Mayor Laura McConnell defended the proposed fee as a way of addressing the city’s infrastructure without further stressing the city’s budget. “One of the reasons we like the Transportation Utility Fee is because it creates a separate pool of money that would be outside our general budget and it would be something that would be specific and it would be something identifiable and [would not] be something…co-mingled into our budget.”

However, many at that town hall meeting were upset with the fee, seeing it as a backdoor form of taxation. As one unidentified attendee said, “You guys just tried to ram this through as opposed to trying to bring it in a vote to the general public. Let us make our own decisions.” Mayor McConnell responded that the TUF is classified as a fee instead of a sales tax and, as such, only required council approval as opposed to a voter referendum.

Churches and other non-profit organizations are also upset with the TUF, as they say it violates their tax-exempt status. First Baptist Church of Mission and the Archdiocese of Kansas City are two churches who have decided to oppose the TUF, filing a lawsuit with the district court. Represented by the Alliance Defense Fund (ADF), both churches face fees of between $1,000 and $2,000 for the coming year. Senior Legal Counsel Erick Stanley calls the tax “outrageous” and sneaky. “The government should not attempt to disguise taxes as ‘fees’ in order to eliminate property tax exemptions when that money could be better spent by churches in caring for the poor,” he said. “No one should be taxing church attendance, but that’s what this tax does; it punishes churches based on their attendance.”

Mission, Kansas is not the only city in America that has tried to institute such fees: the Idaho and Florida Supreme Courts have both ruled in similar cases that such “fees” are, in fact, taxes. “This case will boil down to whether the courts consider this a fee or a property tax,” Stanley told nbcactionnews.com. “We’re confident that, based on what the Kansas Supreme Court has said many times over and the difference between a fee and a property tax that, in reality, what the city of Mission has done here is to institute a property tax and subvert the property tax exemptions for churches, charities and other nonprofit organizations, simply because they want more money.”

In your prayers this week, please pray that:

• The courts will recognize the importance of churches in today’s society and will continue to help churches fulfill their roles instead of hindering them.
• City officials across America will act fairly and unbiased towards churches and church organizations.
• People across America will be bold and continue to speak out against injustice, even when it involves government.