God Land

[thenewguard]

(x-posted)

Is your organisation 'an establishment, organisation or association that is instituted to advance or promote religious purposes'? The Australian Tax Office wants to know. In what amounts to little more than writing blank checks to fundamentalist Christians, Australian politicans know what sort of backlash they'd face from voters if

Comments

[underlankers]

What can we expect from a state that didn't overturn Terra Nullius until after Apartheid, Jim Crow, and the USSR fell? Not like Australia's leaders are particularly adept at figuring out geopolitics if that's any indication.

[mrsilence]

That's hardly an indication of anything to do with geopolitics

[underlankers]

And Indian genocides and racial slavery were the British legacy to the USA, as well. Does that excuse the USA's actions there? I'm willing to bet the answer's no on that account. What's good for Washington City is good for Canberra.

[mrsilence]

Sorry, what specifically are you talking about when you say the USA's actions?

[acesspadesdice]

True, but it's all over thw West, look at the nut job outfits in the US getting tax free status. The difinative discussion which sets it in concrete
http://www.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/sinodisp/au/cases/cth/HCA/1983/40.html?query=%22church%20of%20scientology%22

[sgiffy]

It's pretty easy to be tax exempt in the us. The problem with Scientology was not so much nuttery, but the fact that they were most likely a for profit group set up to make people rich.

[acesspadesdice]

Noy in Aus they're not, they're merely a religion according to the HC of Australia. Where does the money go btw? I've never know them to run any charities, just sign people up for auditing.

[sgiffy]

I don't know much about Australia, but in the US courts are pretty reluctant to get into deciding what is an is not a church and the non-profit laws are written pretty broadly. There was even a problem in the 70's and 80's of people basically setting up one-person sham churches to avoid income tax that forced courts to put some standards done.

Not to really defend them, but Scientology does run some charities. Most notably Narconon, which does a bunch of drug rehab stuff in the US. A lot of their problems here stemmed from royalties on books and their 'technology' as well as compensation for leaders.

[sgiffy]

Why not just rid of the requirment that it be a religious group and make all not-for-profits exempt. That's basically what we do here in the us and it works quite well.

[mrsilence]

The problem is that all they have to do then is run a 'charity', which buys products that enable it to provide it's services from a parent company at inflated prices, which allows the parent company to profiteer from the work being done by the charity wing.

Then they can say "Look no profits! Tax exemption please!"

[sgiffy]

There are laws against that in the US that prevent that such as restrictions of private inurement, a requirement of arms length dealing, and outright prohibitions against some dealings between companies owned or operated by people affiliated with the non-profit.

It also goes the other way where charities are sometimes forbidden from engaging in business that is done by the private sector. For example NYU was once given a pasta factory and had to sell it or risk losing its non-profit status.

[allhatnocattle]

There is no such thing as a non-charity. You can gift money (or things, or services) to non-profits, for-profits and even individuals. In this sense, all accept charity (unless they refuse)

[acesspadesdice]

There should be a requirement for tax exemption that the organisation, church or no, should spend 80% at least on the direct provision of charity, and say 20% only on administration etc. before they can be tax exempt.

[geezer_also]

Actually that sounds good, altho I believe it would eliminate most charities, like the American Red Cross.......it would definitely curtail most gov't programs, if they couldn't get tax monies unless 80% of their budgets had to actually go to their programs. :D

[acesspadesdice]

Are you confusing tax payer funding from tax exempt staus on earnings?

[geezer_also]

No, I just lumping them together...sorry, I'm not being clear this morning.....not that I am often, but meh ;)