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KENNETH COPELAND’S $3.6 MILLION JET RULED BY BOARD AS TAXABLE: Ministry of evangelist seeks tax-free status.
The district had denied the jet's tax-exempt status because Copeland's ministry refused to disclose salaries of its directors and employees, including Copeland, his wife and other ministers.
The ministry has also refused a U.S. senator's request for compensation information. David Middlebrook, an attorney for Copeland, said the ministry, also known as Eagle Mountain International Church, will consider its legal options but declined to elaborate on what those may be. The jet in question is a 1998 Cessna Bravo 550, which seats nine people. Taxes on the jet would be about $75,000, a district official said. The ministry is based in Newark, northwest of Fort Worth.
Rick Duncan, another attorney for Copeland, said that revealing ministers' salaries should be a concern to all churches in Tarrant County and that the request for salaries was unprecedented in his experience. At last Monday's appraisal review board hearing, Duncan said that the ministry has not been given any reason why the information is necessary and that such information was "universally ignored" in the past.
"That information, if provided, is going to be public information and anyone can walk in off the street and get that," he said during the hearing. "And we think that has all kinds of privacy concerns, not just for Eagle Mountain but every church in Tarrant County."
So far, the Copelands have refused, but they said they would cooperate with an IRS inquiry (Source: Fort Worth Star-Telegram).
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