FLDS polygamists urged to pay property taxes
 Delinquent taxes must be paid in order for members to stay
 
By Nancy Perkins
Deseret Morning News
 
ST. GEORGE — Residents of twin polygamous towns on the Utah/Arizona border must pay property taxes on land they do not own or face forfeiting any future right to live on the property, according to a notice mailed last week to each occupant.

Most of the land in Colorado City, Ariz., and Hildale, Washington County, belongs to the United Effort Plan Trust, or UEP, which once was controlled by the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints and its leader Warren Jeffs.

A Utah judge seized control of the trust and removed its trustees last year after they failed to protect the UEP and its $100 million in assets from numerous lawsuits. The judge appointed Bruce Wisan, a certified public accountant, as special fiduciary over the UEP. A new advisory panel was also appointed to assist Wisan in reforming the trust.

"Voluntary property tax payments are an indication of a UEP land occupant's interest in continuing to reside on land owned by the UEP," state the notices, which were placed in individual postal boxes last week. "Those who do not indicate their interest in maintaining UEP lands by paying property taxes on the homes they occupy may eventually forfeit that opportunity."

Wisan said Tuesday that property in both towns would be surveyed so that individual lots can be identified with separate legal descriptions and taxed appropriately.

"We are not going to take the property tax burden off of the FLDS," he said. "If they are not going to pay property taxes, I am not going to do it for them."

The extensive land holdings of the UEP include homes, commercial and industrial buildings, schools and other structures built by members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, which claims thousands of members in several states and Canada.

FLDS members in good standing have traditionally built homes on UEP land with approval from their church leaders. In recent years under Jeffs' direction, dozens of men have been banished from the communities and stripped of their families.

Many of the FLDS faithful have left the two towns for a new compound that Jeffs is building in Schleicher County, Texas — a move that leaves Wisan with many questions.

"If they're not planning on staying then I can see why they're not paying," he said. "If they don't pay then I will be forced to find people who will."

Of the $261,475.23 owed in property taxes to Washington County this year, only 32 percent of it has been paid, according to the UEP notice. In Mohave County, about 43 percent of $573,747.65 in assessed property taxes has been paid with the remaining amount now considered delinquent.

E-mail: nperkins@desnews.com
 
deseretnews.com
Originally published Wednesday, January 18, 2006
 
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