The First Church of Costco

The Wall Street Journal ^ | Thursday, May 30, 2002

[let freedom sing]

Boy, this one's a STINKER!!!-- and the worst excuse for the blatant misuse of emminent domain.

[borntodiefree]

That is why property taxes are immoral, unethical and should be illegal. By having property taxes, it means the city/state has an inherent interest in all the private property which is in direct contradictions to the canon of a free society.

There are many other proper forms of taxation, but of course the absolute worst has been implemented.

[HeadOn]

Good for you. I went to costco.com and selected the customer service section. There is a place there where you can enter questions. My question was "Are you ready to lose hundreds of customers?"

Maybe they should get more of those questions...

[d14truth]

The Wall Street Journal(good pick)--

City of Cypress willing to 'pony up' ~$14.5 million in the hopes of attracting Costco(not a done deal) when the church will attract people which will cause Costco to purchase a different parcel at a better price.

The City Council of Cypress has their 'collective' head where the sun don't shine; but, then, they can never pass on the opportunity to spend taxpayers' money. Watch the 'deal' Costco pulls once the 'city' has the property. They will probably want a 10-year property tax exemption just for coming into Cypress. Remember, these are the same type of geniuses that came up with California's energy deregulation plan that would somehow outwit the energy experts. Yeah, right!!!

[Nick Danger]

Costco should have to buy six churches, or none.

[South40]

Property taxes are only a small part of the equation. A store such as Costco has the potential to generate close to $1 million a year in sales tax revenues for the city, while the property taxes probably won’t exceed $25,000.

[d14truth]

"$1 million a year in sales tax revenues for the city..."

State sales tax, county property tax, no city sales tax. Costco will probably have more employees than the church, and require more 'city services', and thus state and county will probably do some 'revenue sharing'--not nearly at the level of 'charitable giving' as the church.

[South40]

Exactamundo!

[hsmomx3]

Really? My neighbor took me to Costco for the first time. Some of their prices looked great but my husband is not totally convinced to join as he says shopping there would cause one to spend more money.

[Twodees]

That's right, no broken case sales.

[spokanite]

Hmmm, I could see the environmentalist using this tactic to their advantage as well. Let's say there are some homesteads in isolated areas in the mountian regions of our country and they want all property owners out of a certain area in order to make the land a "National Park". Could this method be used to add more land into the government's hands and less for individual landowners?

I'm not liking the looks of this...

[staytrue]

a county govt. is going to do a questionable (in my opinion illegal) eminent domain on some of my land. I've talked to several lawyers and the consensus of everyone is that if they want it, they can take it. All you can do is negotiate on the price but you basically have no choice about selling.

[Revolting cat!]

Really?

No, my mistake since I researched it a bit. It was Sol Price, founder of Price Club which was acquired by Costco about 10 years ago. (But good luck trying to google any references to his Communist Party membership, which I had seen mentioned a number of times back in the 80s when being a Communist wasn't considered any different than being a Presbytarian. Ah, those were the days!)

[Koblenz]

Property taxes are only a small part of the equation. A store such as Costco has the potential to generate close to $1 million a year in sales tax revenues for the city, while the property taxes probably won’t exceed $25,000.

I don't know how California works, but only $25,000 in annual property taxes would be fantastic, considering the property alone, with no buildings, costs $14 million. That's a property tax rate of 0.0178% or $1.78 mills (here in CT, we measure property taxes in mills, which is how much you pay for each thousand dollars of value).

1.78 mills is incredibly low. Here in Greenwich, our mill rate is about $11, whereas in poorer parts of the state, the mill rate is much higher, for instance, in Bridgeport, it's $65. So in Greenwich, a $14 million property would be assessed at $9.8 million (assessments are 70% of the market value) and taxed at $11 per $1000, or $107,800 for the $14 million property. In Bridgeport, annual taxes would be six times as much, or around $640,000 per year.

Sales taxes are usually administered by the state and collected by the state, not the county. Thus, the local municipality would likely not derive much benefit from the sales taxes.

[Koblenz]

Every other business in reality, not in effect, as well as every other property owner SUBSIDIZES GOVERNMENT, AND IT'S INSTITUTIONS....

Every business and individual who pays taxes pays for government services, true. And the government provides services -- police, fire, a monetary system, defense, a court system, an enforcer of property rights -- that are absolutely essential. Problem is, they also provide a slew of services that they have no business providing.

The collection system is messed up, sure, but no system is going to be perfect. But when the government devises a system, whether it's an income tax system, a property tax system, or a sales tax system, it should levy these taxes fairly, and not give one group a break over the others because they are more moral or connected or whatever. In a sales tax scheme, all should be taxes, income taxes should be applied on a flat structure, and property taxes should be levied against all property owners, whether they be a brothel or a church.

[Diddle E. Squat]

LOL!

[hobbes1]

No, because if you tax the church, you are essentially forcing them, to tax their parishoners, in effect, taxing the exercise of their worship.

And as far back as you care to go, that is, decidedly Un-American.

[Khepera]

There is a new law (Our Church has just informed us) That churches that own over 15 acers have to start paying property taxes on the land. This may be in Indiana only however, our church will have to start paying taxes on the land we own. Since we are part owners of a summer camp it puts us well over 15 acers.

[hobbes1]

Would it not be easier to set up a separate entity to own most of the 15 acres, and leave the church Tax free ?

[Rebelbase]

History of the case, copies of the lawsuits, etc.... Cottonwood.org