Mission’s Impossible Agenda: Taxing Churches, Based on Attendance

• By Alan Sears
• Posted Jan 4, 2011
• 1 Comment »

In Mission, Kansas, local officials are hitting churches going and coming for so-called “driveway fees” that effectively tax religious groups, non-profits, and charities normally immune to taxation.

These fees – very similar to ones struck down by supreme courts in Florida and Idaho – actually bill property owners based on the number of trips in and out of their driveways.  By describing these de facto taxes as “fees,” Mission officials are attempting to skirt state laws prohibiting the levy of property taxes on churches.

“No one should be taxing church attendance, but that’s what this tax does: it punishes churches based on their attendance,” says ADF Senior Legal Counsel Erik Stanley, who filed suit in district court on December 20 against the city on behalf of two churches impacted by the fees. “Cleverly disguising a tax as a fee is just another way to penalize churches and other non-profit organizations and charities by subverting their tax exemptions so that the government can collect more money.”

“This driveway tax is simply outrageous,” Stanley adds. “Will we soon be seeing a ‘sidewalk tax’ based on the number of people who walk to church?”

It’s been five months since the Mission City Council came up with this brainstorm, and adopted Ordinance No. 1332 to establish the so-called “Transportation Utility Fee.” All property within city limits that has improvements (including buildings, landscaping, outside storage, and parking lots) is subject to the fee … including properties legally exempt from traditional property taxes.

The amount of the tax is calculated by estimating the average number of vehicle trips generated by a property. Single family homes are assessed a fixed rate of $72 per year, while 5.8 total weekly vehicle trips are estimated per worship facility seat to calculate the tax amount for churches.  The bigger the church, the higher the “fees” it can expect to pay.

Of the two churches ADF attorneys are representing, the city assessed First Baptist Church of Mission nearly $1,000 and St. Pius X Catholic Church $1,700 for the upcoming year.

“The government should not attempt to disguise taxes as ‘fees’ in order to eliminate property tax exemptions, especially when that money could be better spent by churches in caring for the poor,” Stanley says. “It makes little sense to extract greater tribute from churches and charities when lost services mean a shift of the burden to the government anyway. Not only is this scheme unlawful, it’s fiscally nonsensical.”

Please be in prayer for the church leaders of Mission and for our attorneys, who are representing them in this crucial case. Pray, too, that pastors and congregations around the country will be made more aware of the growing legal persecutions being applied to the Church in America – and that they’ll respond with courage and grace to these challenges.