The story of the property tax exemption for radio station WCVO – 104.9 – The River reminds me of a little trick my father used to do with his hands while reciting “Here is the church. Here is the steeple. Open the doors and see all the people.” You can get an idea of it from this video, although you’ll be missing out on the glass of Rheingold and the Camel cigarette that would accompany the old man’s demonstration.
Property Tax And Churches
WCVO was owned by the Christian Voice of Central Ohio, now known as One Connection Media Group. One Connection Media Group is recognized as tax exempt by the Internal Revenue Service. One Connection files Form 990. If the IRS recognized OCMG as a church, the Form 990 would not have been required. There is a 14-factor test for church status and I think it likely that OCMG would come up short. The bulk of OCMG’s revenue ($2.8 million out of $3.6 million) is from advertising. The decision refers to Christian Voice, so that’s what we will use from here on in.
Exemption from local property tax is often more challenging than recognition as a charitable organization by the IRS. The precise use of the property involved can be a factor. I have followed the way this issue plays out across the country and it is quite ecumenical. I have written about Protestant megachurches , Mormons, a Jewish summer camp, a Pagan Phryganium and an Islamic Center among others.
What the Supreme Court of Ohio had to decide was whether property that was mainly used to run a radio station qualified as “house of public worship”. In a close decision (4-3), they ruled that it did qualify.
What Is A House Of Public Worship?
The tax commissioner in denying the exemption took a view of what constituted a “house of public worship” similar to my father’s little hand trick. “Open the doors and see all the people”.
….. the tax commissioner denied the exemption, finding “no evidence that people assemble to worship together on the subject property” and reasoning that the exemption applies only “where people gather to profess their faith or to observe and participate in religious rituals or ceremonies.”
The 16,783 square-foot building on 2.184 acres had meeting rooms, offices and a chapel.
The programming was 95% Christian music and 5 percent “talk”. There were one-minute spots from the station’s full-time pastor and a three hour syndicated program called “Keep the Faith”. Here is a sample.
Majority Favors Exemption
That was good enough for the majority of the Court.
With a view to substance, we are of the opinion that the ’s isolation of the radio station from the total picture is unwarranted by the evidence in this case. The evidence amply shows that this facility merely implements the religious objectives of the organization. The character of any nonprofit corporation must be found in its motives, its charter, its purposes, its methods, and its operation. Here, the appellee, like most churches, has dedicated all its land and buildings to charity and religion, and the operation of the radio station is not alone sufficient to change the underlying foundation of the corporation. Within the scope of common understanding, the appellee has demonstrated by evidence the necessary attributes of a church.
Even if true, the tax commissioner’s position that a physical assemblage of persons does not engage in worship activity on Christian Voice’s Gahanna property would not preclude the conclusion that Christian Voice is a church within the meaning of the statute. R.C. 5709.07(D)(1) does not require a congregation or worship activity; instead, its concern is whether the organization has a primarily religious purpose and is not for profit. We have also rejected the requirement that an organization must have a united body of communicants to be a church when the organization exhibits the essential qualities of a church. (Emphasis added)
So in the view of the majority, you don’t have to look inside and see all the people.
Strong Dissent
The Chief Justice led the dissenters in the decision.
References to music, including singing and the use of musical instruments, appear throughout the Bible. See, e.g., Isaiah 12: 5; Psalms 9: 2, 11; 1 Chronicles 13: 8. And references to the Bible and other religious texts are often the bases of great works by musical artists, even those considered outside the contemporary Christian music genre. Consider, for example, Pete Seeger’s Turn! Turn! Turn! (To Everything There Is A Season), which was made famous by The Byrds in the 1960s but is, essentially, a restatement of the Book of Ecclesiastes.
But as both Christians and taxpayers will recognize and understand, the mere fact that those songs are transmitted over radio airwaves does not transmogrify the broadcaster into a tax-exempt house of worship under the Revised Code any more than a television or cable station comes closer to tax-exemption eligibility every time it airs a religiously inspired song or movie. And the mere fact that one might receive the broadcast in his home or even spend a portion of his week humming, whistling, or singing some of the great hymns or “bible verses set to music” does not transform one’s abode or vehicle into a tax-exempt house of worship. (Emphasis added)
I’m not sure who I want to root for on this one. On the one hand, property tax exemptions should be construed narrowly, since either the other ratepayers have to pick up the slack or the town has to get by with one less cop or give up that AP English class or something. On the other hand, there is “meat space” prejudice baked into a lot of statutes that might privilege more traditional forms of gathering. I’ll probably have to lean with the minority on the basis that any judge who can work Pete Seeger into an opinion must be right.
Other Coverage
It took me a while to get to this decision which came out in mid- April. There was local coverage. A story in The Columbus Dispatch was titled Court: Christian radio station tax-exempt as place of worship
In a strongly worded dissent, Chief Justice Maureen O’Connor accused the majority justices of “blatant activism” for its use of misguided case law “flown in on a wing and prayer” to rule in favor of Christian Voice and its station, dubbed “The River.”
The majority found that the “broadcast of ‘adult contemporary Christian’ music mystically transforms its radio station into a tax-exempt house of worship,” O’Connor wrote. “If that framing were proper, we would face a church-state issue that poses complex constitutional conundrums.” The public does not gather at the station for religious services, she said.
Court News of Ohio focused on Justice Judith Ann Lanziger’s separate dissent
“Never before have we expanded the exemption, which again must be strictly construed, to property like the one in the present case – a radio station, which is so clearly unlike the traditional church buildings used for public worship to which we have applied the exemption in the past,” she wrote. “There is no church here.”