Request By:
Mr. Rick Christman
Western Kentucky Regional Mental Health
and Mental Retardation Board, Inc.
1530 Lone Oak Road
P.O. Box 7287
Paducah, Kentucky 42001
Opinion
Opinion By: Steven L. Beshear, Attorney General; By Alex W. Rose, Assistant Attorney General
In your letter to the Attorney General you ask whether the Paducah/McCracken County Association for Retarded Citizens, Inc. is exempt from property tax. The purpose of the Paducah/McCracken County Association for Retarded Citizens, Inc., is to develop and operate residential and other services for the mentally handicapped. This organization has been granted an exemption under Section 501 of the Internal Revenue Code. The services provided will be limited to mentally retarded persons. The Association owns no property but is pursuing, through the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, construction of a group home for mentally handicapped individuals.
Section 170 of the Kentucky Constitution states, in part: "There shall be exempt from taxation . . . institutions of purely public charity . . . ." Charity was defined in
Commonwealth ex rel. Luckett v. I. W. Bernheim Foundation, Ky., 505 S.W.2d 762 (1974) and
Department of Revenue v. Louisville Children's Theatre, Ky.App., 565 S.W.2d 643 (1978) to include "activities which reasonably better the condition of mankind." In
Banahan v. Presbyterian Housing Corporation, Ky., 553 S.W.2d 48 (1977), the Court recognized the construction and rental of housing to low income, elderly or handicapped persons as purely charitable under § 170.
Based on the above cases, it is our opinion that the Paducah/McCracken County Association for Retarded Citizens, Inc. is an institution of purely public charity and, as such, is exempt from property tax.