[Riverside County] CORONA: Cemetery may be forced to pay up after tax mistake

A Corona cemetery was mistakenly classified as a nonprofit, resulting in years of uncollected property taxes, according to a Riverside County Grand Jury report.

The 2015-2016 report, released this week, recommended that the city of Corona and the Riverside County Assessor’s office make changes to ensure that all businesses and groups are paying property taxes and business license fees. The civil grand jury is made up of 19 citizens empaneled by a judge every year to investigate public agencies’ inner workings and suggest improvements.

In response to a complaint, the grand jury investigated the Corona Cemetery Association, better known as Sunnyslope Cemetery, and found that it had been classified by the assessor’s office as a cemetery special district.

Cemetery special districts are exempt from property taxes because they aren’t operated for profit and are owned and operated by the federal, state or local governments.

Sunnyslope has never been a cemetery special district, making it subject to property taxes unless it was granted nonprofit status, according to the report. Sunnyslope is a private nonprofit, but its nonprofit status was suspended by the California Franchise Tax Board in 2007, the grand jury stated.

After the grand jury met with the assessor’s office to discuss its finding, the assessor informed the cemetery that it owes four years of property taxes unless it renews its nonprofit status, the report stated. The amount due was not listed in the report.

A representative for Sunnyslope could not be reached for comment Friday, July 1.

Assessor Peter Aldana said his office is preparing a formal response to the grand jury, due within 60 days, that will include changes being made to catch such mistakes.

Aldana said it appears that the cemetery had been mistakenly classified as government-owned non-taxable property since 1978. His office has since reviewed the status of other cemeteries in the county and found that they were all classified correctly, he said.

“This was a really unique situation,” Aldana said.

The grand jury also found that the cemetery was not required by the city to pay for its annual business license renewal and its status had not reviewed by Corona city officials for at least a decade.

Grand jury members met with City Manager Darrell Talbert to discuss the city’s procedures for issuing business licenses. He told them he did not know if the city had a procedure in place to verify the nonprofit status of businesses, the report stated.

Talbert could not be reached for comment.

July 1, 2016

The Press Enterprise

By Imran Ghori