Tri-Cities Church Breaks Law By Holding Too Many Yard Sales
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Tri-Cities Church Breaks Law By Holding Too Many...
Tri-Cities Church Breaks Law By Holding Too Many Yard Sales
Dana Carufel/WJHL
House of Prayer Overseer Gary Barnett was shocked to learn his Johnson City church technically broke the law last week. The small, non-denominational church located along Milligan Highway routinely holds yard sales to make money for charity. On average, Barnett says the sales bring in anywhere from $100 to $300.
“We’ve helped people on their power bills,“ Barnett said. “We’ve helped people that have lost somebody in their family.“
The House of Prayer held its third sale of the year last week, like always in the church parking lot. The next day, Barnett says a state tax enforcer came calling.
“I said, ‘you mean the church has to collect tax from the garage sale,‘“ Barnett recalled. “He said, ‘yes, write down everything and charge them tax.‘“
Aside from just a couple of exceptions, according to Tennessee law, even tax-exempt charities are only allowed to hold two tax-free yard sales a year. If a person or charity wants to hold three or more, they are required to collect sales tax for every purchase.
“It seems like that when you give or try to help somebody, that they’re trying to come in and trying to interfere with that,“ Barnett siad.
Still, this isn’t a new law. The Tennessee Department of Revenue is the agency responsible for enforcing the law. However, the state says it doesn’t necessarily police people and their yard sales. Instead, it relies on complaints.
It’s unclear if a complaint led to the situation at the House of Prayer. Regardless, Barnett hopes the state will let this one mistake slide, especially since profits from its yard sales are going to people in need.
For more information about Tennessee’s yard sale rules, call the State Department of Revenue at (800) 342-1003.
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Reader Reactions
(76BLAZ) Volunteer Fire Depts are only allowed to have 2 fund drives a year. I think it is stupid, due to the fact of lack of money and how much it costs them to respond to someones house on fire or someones auto accident. If things dont change soon i would look for some Departments go under.
This law doesn’t only apply to yard sales, it applies to any type of fund raiser held by the non-profit group, including schools. If you have children attending school, you are aware of the lack of funding from local and state government, but they, specifically the Dept. of Revenue, are very willing to TAKE funds from the schools via this sales tax law. For large fund raisers, such as candy, school pictures, etc., this amount TAKEN from the school can be as much a $1,000 to $2,000! This is money that could be used IN THE SCHOOLS. I feel confident that our lawmakers are intelligent enough to come up with a way to allow legitimate groups, such as churches & schools, to be completely from the sales tax.
Contact your state law makers to fix this ludicrous law!
YOU said every thing right ON THE FIST COMMENT!sonji704 so so right.
The land of the free! You know I don’t really know if there is much to add to the other comments except this country is absolutely pathetic as far as our judicial system. Add in the medical, political, well just about all the systems. The people of this country are really struggling to make ends meet. A lot of them aren’t even making it so they have to resort to losing their home and living with relatives. Or turn to chuches and other organizations to help them keep the power on or put food on the table. Then comes the dorky law that wants to tax any and everything not once, but twice. I mean, come on! Do you out there ever wonder where this money actually goes to? Not in our pockets. Perhaps the people who are passing these stupid laws and trying to enforce them!!!!!! You know the saying “THE RICH GET RICHER AND THE POOR GET POORER”. Rich people don’t have yard sales….they don’t need to. People who don’t have money have the yard sales…..because they need money.
If the people of this country don’t stand up and start fighting these stupid laws we are all going to be living in a cardboard box while stareing at a rich persons house. Heck the tax man would probably tax our cardboard house! Leave the chuches alone, leave the people alone. Go find something else to do like watching the rich people to see where they hide their money so uncle sam can’t tax it!!!
Take a moment to really think about this. Laws of this nature are created because somewhere along the line someone has abused a privelege. I think non-profits should be excluded from this law but obviously someone thought it necessary not to. The law itself is wonderful because I do not want my neighbors making a living by having a yard sale next door to me every weekend. The person that we should wonder about is the person that obviously made a complaint.
Why is it that the state can tax me again for an item I’ve already paid a tax on at purchase?
I understand this is law and everyone is subject to it…but come on. It’s a church yard sale, and the proceeds go to charity. It’s not like they’re using the money for any materialisitc or aesthetic purpose. Justice would demand the matter be closed with a warning, and in the future have parishoners hold sales in their own yards with proceeds going to help those in need.
Something I don’t understand. Why can volunteer fire depts have 4 yard sales a year to help raise money ? But a church that helps people also. Can only have 2 a year whats wrong with this picture. Also with the ecomony the way it is people has to do something. And some do turn to the church for help. And I think they need to lighten up on this issue. Someone must have called around them. I think that if anyone is trying to help someone then thats great.
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