And a good start would be for George Pell to pay back the $100,000,000 dollars that stupid john Howard setup and equally stupid Kevin Rudd didn't veto.

Tax all religious organisations - no problems, but why and how would any government tax atheists ? What have we ever done to deserve that ?

And presumably any organisation promoting atheism is already being taxed, since it would not be a religious organisation ?

Joe

What I could do if I had tax fee dollars to spend.

I could pay my legal bills with tax free dollars, if I knowingly harboured sexual predators.

I could buy up property and while this may not seem such an issue, for every property I buy with tax free dollars, its one less property on the market for the tax paying folk to choose from. A tax free benefit that drives prices up.

I could even make a profit on my property, then reinvest my TAX FREE dollars back into more property.

But, the bit that really gets up my nose is that much of that tax free wealth has come in the form of tax deductable donations. Donations that should have attracted taxes,and lets face it, our taxes are running on empty so we need all we can get.

We would all win if everyone was taxed.
The only possible way , is with an entirely unavoidable stand alone expenditure tax.
In a 1,6 trillion dollar economy, an unavoidable 18% expenditure tax would collect 380 billions.
Meaning all other tax measures could be jettisoned!
The first effect of this reform?
It wouldn't be necessary, to spend 7+% of the bottom line, as tax compliance costs!
Which could then be returned to the bottom line, to make the effective tax rate on Australian business, just 11% in comparative terms, or the cheapest in the developed world?
Given all tax avoidance would then just be impossible for anyone, be they 7 day Satanic or Scientology, the same thing?
Tax revenue would double and then double again.
This feature would sound the death-knell, of both the structural deficit, and social injustice!?
And as the huge ongoing surplus grew, the rate could be further reduced to around 5% variable; or less in real terms than former tax compliance/avoidance costs! Hallelujah.
Varying the tax rate microscopically, would alone control all inflation!
The complete repeal of all other regressive tax harvesting measures, including the ubiquitous cascading GST, payroll tax and fuel excise etc, would improve Australian based business, by as much as a further 30%; and household disposals by an estimated average of 25%.
This would mean a 15% non contributory super would be immediately doable, as well as a 10% rise in savings or economy stimulating discretionary spending!
All this, courtesy of current avoiders' and their finally collected tax contributions!
I kid you not!
Even so, plenty will be arguing most strenuously, for the status quo, or even more complex arrangements; or that we already have a broad based tax, called the GST?
Trouble with all that BS!
Most foreigners doing wholesale/distribution business and collecting price gouged profits here, don't pay it of most of our other tax measures, which now seem to fall most seriously, on those with the least, all while granting virtual billionaires, veritable tax holidays?
Time for a cool change!
Rhrosty.

Time for a cool change!
Rhrosty,
Flat Tax ! Earn a Dollar, pay 20 Cents Tax. All done ! Importers pay 20% import duty. Have a business overseas ?, Live overseas ! Bring a Dollar into Australia pay 20 % Tax.
You'd be surprised how many more people would live a life style on merit rather than exploitation of a stupid tax system.

I agree churches should pay taxes, but they should be taxed like other non-profit organisations, not like corporations. The estimates of revenue foregone in this article are high because they include payment of profits tax on church revenue.

But – they should pay capital gains tax, payroll tax, GST, rates etc the same as any other organisation.