Anybody Up for Paying $40 to Visit a Theme Park Valued at $10?

I will note here that Answers In Genesis has accomplished the second sale of its Ark Encounter theme park near Williamstown, Kentucky in as many months, and each time it changed hands for the princely sum of $10. That is, less than the take-home pay for two hours of work by even an employee making only minimum wage. A brief excursion to AiG’s page on ticket prices shows the undiscounted adult fare for entry to the park to be $40 (a dollar for each day and night of deluge?).

One might ask why such a sale might happen. AiG would like to keep money that the local municipality, Williamstown, claims in a $0.50/ticket “safety fee” tax, which comes to about $700,000 this year. So it “sold” the Ark Park from a for-profit front corporation to a non-profit religious corporation … for $10. The state of Kentucky noticed this, and sent notification that the non-profit was not eligible for the $18 million in tax breaks the state had agreed to with the for-profit front corporation. AiG apparently is bright enough to work out that $18M is more than $0.7M, and so have accomplished the “sale” of the Ark Park back to the original for-profit entity … for $10. This is apparently done in the fervent hope that Kentucky will simply forget about the spiteful maneuvering and restore the $18M tax break as if nothing at all happened.

The latest news item on this is here.