Fort Worth, USA - After fighting for many years over the constitutionality of taxing religious institutions, a poor, black church in far south Fort Worth is to lose about half its property at a foreclosure sale on the courthouse steps next month.
The New Mount Calvary Missionary Baptist Church is to lose the land in the 5800 block of Oak Grove Road on Feb. 7 for not paying about $33,000 in local property taxes, penalties and interest, Tarrant County tax officials said Monday.
The Tarrant County tax assessor-collector’s office has tried to work with the Rev. Tom Franklin, head pastor of the church. But county officials said Franklin has not cooperated. One official said the minister returned his last tax statement to the office with a notice that he didn’t recognize its authority over him or the church.
“We rarely take properties. We only take them if we are not getting any payment and as a last resort,” said Betsy Price, Tarrant County tax assessor-collector. “He isn’t offering anything, and he is not coming in to work with us.”
Franklin said the county is wrong “for taxing a church.” In the past, he has said there should be a separation of church and state for taxing purposes.
“It is a sad day where an elected official can say, ‘We can sell off a poor church’s property,’ ” Franklin said. “This is a poor black church. ... They gone crazy with this thing.”
Franklin said he will attend the Fort Worth City Council meeting Tuesday to protest and try to stop the sale.
The sale of the property, appraised at $28,260, would be a concluding chapter in Franklin’s long fight against taxing authorities and the legal profession.
Over the years, Franklin and his congregation have struggled to pay off their debts, including taxes, after buying the church and the land from a congregation that disbanded. The church bought nearly 5 acres, half of it vacant, adjacent to the Alcon Labs campus.
In 1993, the Tarrant Appraisal District sued, saying the church owed thousands of dollars in unpaid taxes. Franklin said the church was tax-exempt, a judge agreed, and the minister thought his troubles were over.
The appraisal district later denied an exemption for the vacant portion of the land, a little more than 2 acres, because it was not used for religious purposes.
While an exemption was granted on the land where the church sits, it was determined, before the appraisal district granted the exemption, that the church owed taxes on the land. The land was appraised at $473,418, and the past-due bill on the church property is $41,870, records show.
Franklin has been in and out of state and federal court concerning taxation of the property.
In court documents, Franklin has said taxing authorities discriminated against his church based on race and wouldn’t recognize its tax-exempt status because the congregation is primarily black.
A federal judge dismissed Franklin’s claims because they were not filed by a licensed attorney. The taxing entities denied Franklin’s claims of racial bias.
“I deny being a racist, and we want people who are qualified to get an exemption to have it,” said John Marshall, the appraisal district’s chief appraiser.
In October 2004, a Tarrant County state district judge also ordered Franklin to stop acting as an attorney for individuals and entities, including his church. The Unauthorized Practice of Law Committee created by the Texas Supreme Court sued Franklin.
In 1999, a state district judge ruled in favor of the appraisal district, effectively saddling the church with its unpaid tax debt. Franklin’s appeals in state court were unsuccessful.
“We’ve bent over backward as far as the tax code allows” in trying to help Franklin pay his taxes, said Morris Booth, the chief delinquent-tax officer in the tax assessor-collector’s office.
Price also said she has no plans to foreclose on the land where the church is. She said the judgment against that property is so old that it will soon drop off the books.
“My position will be to just let it sit,” she said.