Is it fair that the Lakewood Church pays NO property taxes? (Houston: sales, real estate)

[wehotex]

Hcad Acct: 1256250010001

I hadn't been by that part of Houston in a while and was looking for The Summit. I googled and found out that it's now occupied by the multimillion $ Lakewood church!!! Let's see.... multimillion dollar business with TV shows, books, etc., but $0 property taxes paid to the City for services?!!! Was the City reluctant to sell the Summit to this church?

[huma281]

Church is considered a charitable organization. If they had to pay property taxes, how would the small churches survive? I do get your point, I think they pay sales tax on the merchandise they sell? There's probably all sorts of tax they're getting away with due to the type of business they're in.

[EasilyAmused]

All churchs are exempt. If you tax one, you have to tax them all.

Seems fair to me.

[Jack Lance]

Originally Posted by wehotex

Hcad Acct: 1256250010001

I hadn't been by that part of Houston in a while and was looking for The Summit. I googled and found out that it's now occupied by the multimillion $ Lakewood church!!! Let's see.... multimillion dollar business with TV shows, books, etc., but $0 property taxes paid to the City for services?!!! Was the City reluctant to sell the Summit to this church?

No,

"The city is poised to sell the former Compaq Center to Lakewood Church for $7.5 million, one of a string of real estate sales city officials hope to use to help close a lingering budget shortfall.

City Council is scheduled to vote on the proposed sale Wednesday, which would end a 30-year lease signed in 2001 by the megachurch's leader and television pastor Joel Osteen. Lakewood, which has the largest congregation in the United States with more than 40,000 attending services each week, made a lump-sum $11.8 million prepayment for the lease to use the 606,000-square-foot building — former home to the Houston Rockets — which sits on seven acres in the Greenway Plaza area along the Southwest Freeway.

Bob Christy, the city's director of real estate, said the complex lease arrangement, coupled with the fact that the city was scheduled to receive no income from the property for the next 23 years, makes the payment a good deal."

The city did get almost $20 mil from Lakewood.

Lakewood to buy former Compaq Center for $7.5M - Houston Chronicle

[TFW46]

Perhaps a fair way to tax churches would be to tax only those that rake in a certain amount of money each year.

[DSL_PWR]

If Lakewood was a "church" I could see them being exempt. But they just pretend to be and yet they still get away with it.

[studiobtm]

I don't much care for the Lakewood church. But either all non-profits pay taxes or they are all exempt. You probably like organization like Greenpeace, the ACLU and PETA? Do you want them to pay taxes?

Does everything that moves need to be taxed? When will greedy government ever say "enough". Well - never. I remember campaigns in the Soviet Union that urged every one to give more - to volunteer more - or else. And the state owned ALL production.

All of these programs, with all of their good intentions; most of them in the long run produce the opposite result of what is intended.

I say starve government and let the people make individual, and relatively more efficient, choices.

Starve the government.

[chris_ut]

If you want to see a country fee of government you need only look at places like Somalia.

[hbcu]

The fact they can cut a check that large says a lot.....

Problem with the taxes is the ones that overbuild then get foreclosed on or ones that then end up in the charter school business and then start to siphon off state tax dollars

[v2four]

if you are going to ***** about lakewood, then what about 2nd baptist, who has five or six locations, not to mention the house that Ed Young lives in, which is 800k and is "church property...what about other mega churches like Kerry Shook's the woodlands church (with three locations) or Windsor Village or any other church that has big time real estate holdings?

I know in Missouri City, they would rather any former big box locations to remain empty instead of a church moving in because they wont get any tax dollars