SAN ANTONIO  Church leaders are lauding a proposed amendment to the Texas Constitution that would give churches six years of tax exemption, rather than three, on unimproved land adjacent to their facilities.
Proposition 3 is one of 22 proposed amendments to be voted on Sept. 13, according to the San Antonio Express-News.
State Rep. Bill Zedler introduced the proposition last spring after Tarrant County began taxing a church for land the church had not improved within the current three-year exemption period.
"They had to sell part of the land they'd intended to build on just to pay those property taxes," he said. "That didn't seem right."
To be exempt under the proposal, such land must be contiguous with the church's developed property and must not produce revenue for the church.
If undeveloped land is sold, the new owner must pay back taxes for up to five years, unless the sale is for right of way, condemnation or government use for a public purpose, or the buyer is another religious institution, the newspaper reported.
The current law has no such provision for paying back taxes, Zelder said.
Not everyone is happy about the proposition.
Bexar County Tax Assessor-Collector Sylvia Romo said removing land from the tax rolls shifts the tax burden to someone else, and churches already have generous tax exemptions.
"Many religious organizations have bought large tracts of prime land that has a high valuation and (for which previous owners were) paying high taxes," she said. "They're removing them from the tax rolls."
Romo said the plan comes at a time when schools and other public agencies  primarily funded through property taxes  are strapped and need every dollar they can get.
But Steve Dorris, Trinity Baptist Church administrator, said the community needs the services that churches provide.
"If you don't look at the value of what churches are doing, it may seem like churches are getting an advantage over other taxpayers, but we're offering huge services to the whole community," he said.
Without tax exemptions, the ability of churches to provide social services would be greatly diminished, he told the newspaper.
