Interesting: Catholic author and speaker Matthew Kelly’s foundation has been denied exemption from property taxes by the state of Ohio:

In recent years, the Kelly Foundation has been engaged in a program to give the Australian writer’s books to students attending his seminars – 60,000 in 2006 – with the foundation footing the bill for their purchase. The foundation buys all its books, CDs and merchandise from Beacon Publishing, Kelly’s for-profit sole proprietorship that manages the licensing for all of Kelly’s merchandise.

But in October, the Ohio Board of Tax Appeals notified the foundation that it supported the Ohio tax commissioner’s 2005 ruling that denied Kelly’s application for exemption of "real property from taxation for tax year 2004, and remission of taxes, penalties and interest for 2002 and 2003." The amount the foundation owed in penalties, interest and taxes was not made available to Catholic News Service.

(And in case any of you who follow Catholic publishing have wondered why Kelly’s books always fill up the charts on the Catholic best-sellers, lists, the first paragraph has your answer. Those lists are compiled, not from bookstore sales, but from publishers self-reporting.)