Request By:
Joseph R. Plappert, O.S.J. Prior
Priory of St. John the Baptist
3014 South Third Street
Louisville, Kentucky 40208
Opinion
Opinion By: Robert F. Stephens, Attorney General; By: William S. Riley, Assistant Attorney General
In your recent letter to the Attorney General it is stated that the Roman Catholic Church owns a convent next to a church in Louisville, Kentucky. The nuns who live in the convent operate an academy on the property and are chaplains of the church. The convent is operating in conjunction with the church and academy. The question is whether the convent is exempt from ad valorem property taxes.
Section 170 of the Kentucky Constitution exempts all parsonages or residences being owned by any religious society, and occupied as a home, for no other purpose, by the minister of any religion, not exceeding one-half acre of ground in towns and cities and two acres of ground in the country; public institutions of education not used or employed for gain by any person or corporation, and the income of which is devoted solely to the cause of education.
The Kentucky Supreme Court, formerly the Kentucky Court of Appeals, has stated that the tax exemption is not confined to the buildings and grounds to which an educational or charitable organization is conducted. It applies to all property without regard to its location or form of investment, where the income therefrom is devoted exclusively to educational purposes. See Louisville Presbyterian Orphans Home Soc., (1945) 299 Ky. 566, 186 S.W.2d 194.
In the case of parsonages, the court has stated in order for a parsonage to be exempt from taxation, it must be owned by a religious society, as well as occupied by a minister. See
Mordecai F. Han Evangelistic Assn. v. Matthews, (1945) 300 Ky. 402, 189 S.W.2d 524, 168 A.L.R. 1216.
If the convent building is being used as a place of residence for the nuns who teach in the local parish school and also as a parsonage or place of residence for the priests who service the church, it would appear that the building is exempt from ad valorem property taxes both under the educational and religious exemption provisions of Section 170 of the Kentucky Constitution.