This is despite Copeland reportedly being the wealthiest pastor in the United States, worth an estimated $750 million.
An exclusive investigation from the Houston Chronicle detailed how Copeland is able to skip out on $150,000 in annual property taxes. The loophole involves registering his Tarrant County-based mansion as a pastor’s home.
Under Texas law, pastors’ houses, known as parsonages, are eligible for a complete exemption from state property taxes. Despite this, officials have stated that while what Copeland is doing may be legal, the law was likely not written with his type of extreme wealth in mind.
“It definitely looks out of place and unusual compared to other parsonages we have,” Jeff Law, the chief appraiser of Tarrant County, told the Chronicle. “But from what I can gather through the law, and my understanding, it qualifies as a parsonage just like the little house next to the church would.”
However, the Texas parsonage law only allows for tax-exempt churches to be situated on a single acre of land. Copeland got around this restriction, though, by purchasing only one acre to build the mansion on, then buying an additional 24 acres of land surrounding the property.
Copeland reportedly built the six-bedroom mansion in 1999 for his wife Gloria because, he said, God told him to do so. It was valued at over $10 million in 2020, but was reduced to a $7 million value in 2021 after protests from Copeland’s church, the Chronicle reported.
Copeland, the founder of the megachurch Eagle Mountain International Church, is considered one of the most high-profile and famous televangelists in the country, with his website listing six ministry office across the world. Beyond his Tarrant County mansion, Copeland has also used his significant wealth to purchase multiple private jets.
He reportedly also owns a number of other properties beyond the mansion.
Due to his wealth, Copeland has attracted criticism for his use of the state law to avoid paying property taxes.
“The law was never intended to give breaks to millionaires and multimillionaires,” Pete Evans, head of the Trinity Foundation, a watchdog group conducting research on televangelists, told the Chronicle. “You make a mockery of the law itself.”
In a response to the investigation, the Eagle Mountain International Church told the Chronicle that it “always abides by biblical guidelines. Our church also adheres to the various federal, state, county and local codes, statutes and ordinances applicable to the church ministry.”
This is not the first time that Copeland has been mired in controversy. Throughout 2020, he was criticized for misinformation in his sermons related to the COVID-19 pandemic, and his anti-vaccine sentiments reportedly contributed to a 2013 measles outbreak in Tarrant County.
Newsweek has reached out to Kenneth Copeland Ministries for comment.
