Pastors' parsonage exemption: What would televangelists pay if their mansions weren’t tax exempt?
Ron Carpenter
California might be the most common location for million-dollar parsonages due to the state’s inflated real estate prices.
California’s guide to the state property tax exemptions for religious organizations says parsonages are exempt when: “The primary residence of clergy (for example, pastor, minister, rabbi, imam, or priest) when the use of the property is incidental to and reasonably necessary to accomplish the nonprofit religious organization’s exempt purpose.”
Is a $7 million parsonage “reasonably necessary”?
The "Inside Edition" investigative report includes brief video of televangelist Ron Carpenter’s Fremont, California-parsonage that is on sale for $7,250,000.
In 2018, Ronald W Carpenter Jr. Ministries purchased the 14,042-square-foot mansion with an 800-bottle wine closet. Alameda County reports the parsonage was appraised at $7,505,330. Before the ministry received the property tax exemption, the ministry paid $83,521.52 in property taxes. The tax bill dropped to $716.70 for 2022-2023.
In 2022, the ministry purchased a second home 14 miles away, which is not tax exempt, for almost $6 million.
Carpenter’s Jubilee Christian Center of San Jose also owns a parsonage in South Carolina worth $1.3 million. The prior property owner paid $12,234.93 in property taxes in 2013. In comparison, the church owed only $79.33 in property taxes for 2023.
