Kenneth Copeland is the wealthiest pastor in America. So why does he live in a tax-free Texas mansion?

At his 2015 Southwest Believers’ Convention in Fort Worth, wealthy Texas televangelist Kenneth Copeland explained how he wound up living in a mansion. It all started when God told him years earlier to build that dream home his wife Gloria had described to him. “Minister this house to her,” he recalled the almighty saying. “It is part of your prosperity.” Her vision was vast: Rising up three stories and sporting white columns in front, the six-bedroom, six-bath estate on the shores of an exclusive lake community outside of Fort Worth has enough room to fit nearly four basketball courts — more than 18,000 square feet of living space in all. “You may think that house is too big,” Copeland told the believers’ convention. “You may think it's too grand. I don't care what you think. I heard from heaven. Glory to God, hallelujah!” What he didn’t mention is that his heavenly plans are being underwritten by Texas taxpayers.

Under a little-known statute that county appraisers say is too vague and permissive, the $7 million mansion owned by Copeland’s Eagle Mountain International Church is considered a parsonage — a clergy residence — qualifying for a 100 percent tax break. That means Copeland’s church gets a pass on what would otherwise be an annual property tax bill exceeding $150,000 — money that other local taxpayers must backfill to cover the cost of schools, police and firefighters. A months-long Houston Chronicle investigation of ministers’ tax-free residences found no shortage of extravagant homes in high-dollar locales. At least two dozen were worth over $1 million even using the artificially low values that exempt properties typically carry. Yet even in that elite company, Copeland’s tax-free clergy residence stands out as an opulent illustration of the lengths the law allows religious organizations to go in claiming the tax break. The only limit on the dollar value churches can exempt resides in the imagination of pastors like Copeland. “The law was never intended to give breaks to millionaires and multimillionaires,” said Pete Evans, president of the Trinity Foundation, a nonprofit dedicated to bringing more accountability and transparency to religious organizations. “You make a mockery of the law itself.”