Watchtower Headquarters To Be TAXED???

[Mary]

NO MORE FREE RIDES

It's time to tighten laws on tax-exempt properties

Source of Article
March 31, 2005

George and Rita Rhein thought their golf course would be in good hands. They had opened the Walker Valley Golf Course in the Town of Shawangunk in 1978. There was a restaurant, a shop, the house where they raised their children and the nine-hole course. But the $19,000 a year in taxes wore them down, and after closing the course four years ago, they began to look for a buyer.

Enter Lily Lin. When the Long Island City woman bought the course for $1.3 million in December, she talked to the Rheins about golf. She even asked about the golf carts.

But now the only ones getting taken for a ride may be the town's taxpayers. Turns out Lin had no intention of operating a golf course, or even chipping a few balls on her own.

Within hours of purchasing the property, Lin turned it over to the World Buddhist Chan Jing Center Inc. next door, where she is a member. The Buddhist Center has applied to the town to have the land removed from the tax rolls.

So now the Rheins feel duped. And town leaders are angry.

Town Supervisor John Valk called the golf course the only viable commercial parcel in the hamlet. Of what the Buddhist Center has done to his town, Valk had this to say: "They have raped it of any future growth."

According to the town assessor, the Buddhist Center now owns most of the buildable land in Walker Valley's commercial zone. The land was set aside for that purpose under the town's master plan. If the land goes off the rolls – and that is by no means certain at this point – the town, county and schools stand to lose about $20,000 a year.

While that may seem like small change in some towns, it isn't in Shawangunk, where tax-exempt properties have taken a big bite out of the local landscape. Just a short ride from the Walker Valley Golf Course and also in the Town of Shawangunk, the Jehovah's Witness Watchtower campus comprises about $120 million in land – tax-free.

At a time when municipalities are struggling to make ends meet and many school districts are facing double-digit tax increases, it's hard not to get our backs up over more property dropping off the tax rolls. And we believe there's good reason for feeling that way.

Consider this: In 2003, a Times Herald-Record investigation revealed that nearly 16 percent of the land in the mid-Hudson was tax-exempt to one degree or another. In some towns, that figure topped 40 percent. And last year alone, more than $1 billion worth of Sullivan County land was tax-exempt. That's not a misprint: one billion dollars.

That's not to say that some of the groups that receive tax-exempt status don't deserve it. Many do. But others gobble up hundreds of acres of local land, placing additional burdens on schools and town infrastructures without ever giving anything back. And some cloak their plans in secrecy and refuse to have anything to do with the town, or people, around them.

When the Record contacted Lin about her plans, she referred all calls to a lawyer, who asked that we not call her again. The Buddhist Center did not return calls. This does not a good neighbor make.

Unfortunately, the state of New York has created a fertile atmosphere for this kind of situation to happen time and again. Something needs to be done about it, and we know just the folks to do it. For the past two years, state Sens. John Bonacic and Elizabeth Little have been pushing legislation that would allow municipalities more control over the land within their boundaries, and help curtail abuses of the tax-exemption system.

Their plan would, among other things, tighten the definition of nonprofit agencies, tax land not currently in use for the specific purpose of a group, allow school districts to charge tuition for students living on tax-exempt property but attending local schools and force nonprofits to develop and put in place land-use plans within two years of buying property.

In other words, no more secrets and no more silence.

It's time to put Bonacic and Little's plan in place. It's time to put a brake on the free rides.