Saturday's Salt Lake (UT) Tribune reports that growing numbers of tax liens are complicating the work of the Utah court-appointed trustee of the FLDS United Effort Plan Trust. The trust holds land in Colorado City, AZ and Hildale, UT on which FLDS members, many in polygamous relationships, live. A combination of misunderstandings, disagreements and complexity has led to taxes not being paid on many properties in Colorado City, as trustee Bruce Wissan still seeks to remove the religious elements from the trust and allocate some land to former FLDS members who left or were expelled from the Church. (See prior posting.) Tax liens have been filed on homes, businesses and school buildings, vacant land and a 54-acre community park and zoo. In February, tax liens on 35 large communal properties were sold at auction, giving the buyers the right to foreclose if back taxes are not paid within three years. Part of the problem is that non-FLDS members placed on land by the trustee have not paid their share of communal taxes. Also Wissan has not applied for tax exemptions for some of the properties that previously had exemptions. Furthermore, some tax lien sales stem from unpaid taxes on only a small portion of a communal lot.
UPDATE: Sunday's Dallas Morning News has a long article that more broadly reviews the unexpected problems being faced being faced by the state of Utah in its attempts to reform the UEP Trust.
