Following the Money at the Champlain Valley Fair

Following the money is sometimes an education.



For instance, a Champlain Valley Fair spokesperson, responding to news that PETA issued an award to Price Chopper for pulling its sponsorship of the Nerger Tiger and Lion Show, repeated the bogus claim that the circus act is “educational big cat show.”



What’s really “educational” is a look at the Champlain Valley Expo's assets and how little it pays in property taxes to the town of Essex Junction.



The Expo’s 2007 Internal Revenue Form 990 showed the Fair Ground’s building and lands valued at well over ten million dollars. The Expo had revenues of over five million dollars that year. Yet property taxes paid amounted to a slim $4,884.



Nice deal for the Fair, lousy deal for Essex Junction, which has to pay for police protection and legal fees if one of those tigers happens to escape and bite someone.



The huge tax break, of course, is because the Expo claims to be “non-profit.” So circus shows like the Nerger’s that would be considered an ordinary, taxable business if they appeared under a Ringling Brothers Big Top suddenly become “educational” and not-for-profit if associated with the Fair.



Asked to explain “how each activity for which income is reported contributed importantly to the organization’s exempt purposes,” the Expo attests in writing to the IRS that “all of these activities are inherent in the presentation of an agricultural and horticultural fair,” including presumably bears playing basketball, tigers doing the snake walk, and elephants dancing on tiptoe.



Actually, you can learn a lot about horticulture and growing vegetables without big cats jumping through hoops. But the Expo managers seem willing jump through whatever legal and IRS hoops are necessary keep their sweet, tax-free deal going.



How educational!