Ken Ham's Ark Encounter trying to have its cake and eat it too

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Williamstown (Kentucky) officials are instituting a “safety fee” for ticket-taking attractions in the city. If implemented, the city would charge Ark Encounter 50 cents per ticket to go towards things like fire trucks and police cars — all the things that make the city a safer place for residents and tourists. Using the estimate of 1.4 million visitors a year, this would amount to approximately $700,000 that Ark Encounter would owe the city annually.

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The Creationists at Ark Encounter, however, say they should be exempt from that charge because they run a non-profit ministry. You wouldn’t force a church to pay taxes, now, would you?!

The problem is that up until now, Ark Encounter has legally been a for-profit business in order to receive a number of tax incentives from the city and state.

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Ark Encounter just took the boldest step yet to avoid paying the 50 cent surcharge.

According to the Lexington Herald-Leader‘s Linda Blackford, the team behind Ark Encounter recently sold the land on which the giant boat rests for a whopping $10.

… 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.

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Ark Encounter used its for-profit status to receive all sorts of tax breaks. Then the Creationists told Williamstown officials that they ran a non-profit ministry to avoid paying more taxes. And now they’re basically confessing that they were a for-profit business this whole time because they just sold the boat to the non-profit entity that oversees it.

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Williamstown gave the Creationists cheap land and tax breaks galore over the next few decades with the hope that Ark Encounter would eventually create lots of jobs and bring in tourists who would spend money at surrounding businesses.

Ken Ham is paying them back by restricting jobs to his anti-gay Creationist buddies, threatening to sue the city over the safety fee, and finding a way to possibly withhold taxes that would fund local schools.

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[Mayor Rick] Skinner said losing all of Ark Encounter’s property taxes would hurt the city, county, and most of all, schools. “It would be a huge hit to the schools,” he said. Skinner said he is “disappointed” in how much the town’s relationship with Ark officials has deteriorated, but said he would wait to comment further until Tuesday’s meeting.

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