CARTER COUNTY, Okla. -- Clergymen in Carter County are now required to pay property taxes on their privately-owned homes, after a decision was handed down late last week by the county equalization board. Robin Beal reports.

The issue has sparked controversy in recent weeks, as county tax assessor Kim Cain raised questions about a long-standing practice in Carter County to provide property tax exemptions for homes owned by religious leaders themselves.

Parsonages, or homes owned by churches, are not subject to the new policy. The churches simply allow the minister to live there. This deals with privately owned homes.

Carter County had been the only county in the entire state of Oklahoma to exempt professional ministers from having to pay taxes on their personal homes, but it hasn't always been that way. The exemption was first offered in 1996.

Now, the official decision from the county equalization board says if you're a pastor, and you own your own home, you now have to pay taxes on that home.

"In the Attorney General's opinions that I got it to me clearly stated that what should be exempt was the parsonages and not the personally-owned home by the pastor," Carter County assessor Kim Cain says.

Cain says this new taxation policy is expected to bring in around $35,000 each year.