Kootenay town denies Catholic church a property tax break

Politicians in a small Kootenay mountain town have made the unusual move not to grant a tax exemption to its local Catholic Church. In August, the Rossland city council voted in favour of denying Sacred Heart Catholic Church a tax exemption for the land surrounding the building. BC law states cities and municipalities can't charge property tax on religious buildings and the land below the physical structure, but they can tax the surrounding land and structures. Rossland Mayor Andy Morel told iNFOnews.ca the move was purely about finances. "It wasn't a decision based out of any kind of ideology," Mayor Morel said. "It was money." A report to Rossland council said not granting the church an exemption would bring in $4,550 over three years. In the church's application for the tax exemption, it says it provides church services along with weddings, funerals and baptisms, and maintains the century-old cemetery. It doesn't rent out any of the space to any other groups and the church isn't used by any other local organizations. "We wish we had more ways to seek taxation and this is one opportunity," the mayor said. It's a move supported by the Kelowna Atheists, Skeptics and Humanists Association who would like to see a change in the rules that exempt religious organizations from paying tax. "We would like to see Kelowna have a better system of application process where they have a filter," association spokesperson Nina George said. George said some of the religious organizations getting a tax break in Kelowna are openly discriminatory against the LGBTQ+ community or simply won't rent out the facility to people who aren't of the same faith. "We're not saying that every church, every temple, every mosque should be taken off the list. What we would like to see is that the application process be aligned with the inclusiveness that Kelowna says that they are," she said. The spokesperson for the non-partisan body said there are issues if a religious group gets a tax exemption but for example won't rent a hall for a wedding if the couple getting married aren't of that faith. "Then you're a private club, you're not a community organization," George said. "Some of them are just private clubs." In the 2021 census, 54% of Kelowna residents said they weren't affiliated with any religious group. George also said that religious buildings are assessed at residential rates, often much lower than what the land and buildings are worth. She said there are 60 religious buildings in Kelowna and the tax implications run into the hundreds of thousands of dollars. There's no figure on how much tax the City of Kelowna is missing out on by giving exemptions to religious organizations. A Rossland city staff report showed that eight organizations applied for an exemption, including a daycare and the Canadian Legion, and if all were granted the exemption the city would lose about $100,000 a year - a sizeable chuck for a community of 3,700 people. Provincially, the BC Humanist Association https://www.bchumanist.ca/knapp_island in a 2021 report calculated that local governments relinquished an estimated $58.4 million in revenue in 2019 through property tax exemptions. In February, the BC Supreme Court rejected an appeal from a Shinto Buddist group https://bc.ctvnews.ca/b-c-court-denies-property-tax-exemption-for-12-9m-island-owned-by-religious-group-1.6760150 that wanted an exemption for Knapp Island a $12.9-million island near Swartz Bay. The court found Knapp Island wasn't accessible to the public, so its principal use wasn't for public worship. Mayor Morel said he recognized that there are valuable groups within the community and that providing them with tax relief is important, but felt the entire decision should be left to local governments and not mandated by the province. Rossland council will vote on the final reading of the bylaw at its Sept. 9 meeting. No one from the Sacred Heart Catholic Church was immediately available for comment. To contact a reporter for this story, email Ben Bulmer mailto:bbulmer@infonews.ca  or call (250) 309-5230 or email the editor mailto:news@infonews.ca . You can also submit photos, videos or news tips to the newsroom mailto:tips@infonews.ca  and be entered to win a monthly prize draw. We welcome your comments and opinions on our stories but play nice. We won't censor or delete comments unless they contain off-topic statements or links, unnecessary vulgarity, false facts, spam or obviously fake profiles. If you have any concerns about what you see in comments, email the editor in the link above. SUBSCRIBE to our awesome newsletter here https://infotel.ca/newsletter .