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KY officials strip Ken Ham’s ‘Ark Encounter’ exhibit of its $18 million tax rebate

G

GK86

Homeland Security Fail
Link.

Ken Ham and his fellow young earth creationists behind Kentucky’s “Ark Encounter” exhibit are locked in a dispute with the county who they claimed would benefit from the attraction.

Earlier this week, the Friendly Atheist‘s Hermant Mehta reported that Williamsburg, Kentucky officials decided to charge the Ark Encounter a $0.50 “safety fee” for each ticket sold, amounting to $700,000 that the Ark Encounter would owe the city each year. But according to Ham and his organization, they should be exempt from the tax since they are a non-profit ministry.

But as Mehta points out, the Ark Encounter “has legally been a for-profit business in order to receive a number of tax incentives from the city and state. … It’s not a church; it’s a money-making tourist attraction.”

Nevertheless, Ham and his cohorts came up with an interesting scheme to avoid the tax.

From the Lexington Herald Leader:

… Ark Encounter LLC sold its main parcel of land — the one with the life-size Noah’s Ark — for $10 to their non-profit affiliate, Crosswater Canyon. Although the property is worth $48 million according to the Grant County Property Valuation Administrator, the deed says its value is only $18.5 million.

That’s the latest salvo in an escalating argument between local officials and Ark Encounter, but some are worried Ark Encounter’s maneuver is a precursor to declaring itself exempt from all taxes, including property taxes that help fund Grant County schools
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But the plan didn’t have its intended effect. On July 18, the Kentucky Tourism, Arts, and Heritage Cabinet sent a letter to the Ark Encounter’s lawyers, informing them that as of July 10, they were “in breach of its Tourism Development Agreement… with the Commonwealth.”
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In other words, now that Ham and his affiliates sold the Ark Encounter to a non-profit entity, they are no longer eligible for the tax rebate deal.
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Mehta writes:

The Creationists running Ark Encounter just screwed themselves out of $18 million over the next decade because they didn’t want to pay a local safety fee worth about $700,000 a year.

We already knew Creationists were ignorant about science.

Turns out they don’t know how to do math, either.
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E

Earthbound64

Banned
I mean, usually when you see the following in one line together:
KY
strip
Encounter
exhibit

You expect a different sort of discussion...
 
H

HStallion

Now what's the next step in your master plan?
Maybe if Hamm is forced to give up the arc eventually they can turn it into a giant gay nightclub experience. Its already got the lighting
 
K

KojiKnight

Member
So to sum it up...

The state offered them a deal because they wanted a tourist attraction built to make revenue for the state.

They then decided to "sell" their attraction to their nonprofit organization and claim tax exemption for $10 and the state decides that instead of a nominal tax to their tickets, they are stripping them of their deal for many millions more?

Beautiful.
 
E

elrechazado

Banned
They would have totally just passed on the fifty cents per ticket onto the customer too, do it's not like it would have been 700k out of pocket. But the tax will straight up hit the bottom line.
 
M

Madness

Member
Wouldn't be surprised if they start getting local elementary schools and middle schools to go on field trips to this museum for social studies classes or something. How can anyone religious/atheist still buy into this these days. Always makes me think of Mass Effect and their story mention of how the Prothean ruins on Mars caused major religions on Earth to incorporate the discoveries into their dogma. We have creationists try to explain dinosaurs and the fossil record using the '6000 year' number and try and discredit science, factual discourse and real evidence utilizing tools like carbon dating etc.
 
P

PHOENIXZERO

Member
I would hope it leads a future stop in prison for Ham and his band of crooks and con artists but I know they would spin it into making themselves victims as their ilk does.
 
K

Kensation

Member
akira28 said:
Bill Nye won.
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giphy.gif
 
V

Vengal

Member
lord pie said:
They are expecting around 1.4m visitors a year?

That seems high?
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Let's frame that this way, I have a co-worker who helped fund this attraction and he has eight kids. He has been muliple times since it opened. I can't imagine he is the only one who regularly visits this place alone or with their family.
 
H

Haly

One day I realized that sadness is just another word for not enough coffee.
Render unto Caesar what is Caesar's
 
C

Chumly

Member
Bottom line they wanted tax rebates for both being a private business while also being tax exempt for being a church. You can't have it both ways dumbasses
 
D

Drayco21

Member
Thought this was going to have more to do with them deciding to throw rainbows up on it "to take back" God's rainbow from those damn, dirty gays- but I'll take karmic justice however it comes.
 
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