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Defence of religious tax free status flawed : Comments
By Max Wallace, published 15/11/2016The issue is that the University of Sydney is a secular organization. The Uniting Church is a religious one. Australia is in principle a democracy not a theocracy.
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First, and for many reasons, each entity claiming religious purpose should be required to be incorporated under Australian laws and to keep proper accounts and records and to comply with standards of governance as apply to every other corporate entity in the country.
Second, I agree that a good argument can be made on social welfare grounds for tax exemptions for certain bodies. I propose that exemptions of this type be available only to record-keeping, auditable entities which provide annual returns to relevant authorities, chief of which is the ACNC - The Australian Charities and Not-For-Profits Commission. All other and non-complying bodies should be made responsible for taxation of various classes, whether religious or non-religious.
Somebody raised an argument along the lines of "income tax has already been paid by parishioners, so their donations to their church should not be taxed again". What crap this is! I use tax-paid money that to purchase bread, milk, my home, my car and my entertainment, my clothes and indeed everything I spend it on except for registered charities and then only for certain defined purposes. My suppliers again pay tax on their business profits and on many of their business expenses. So what? This is a non-argument.
Consider also tax in the form of land tax, council rates and related. There are plenty of ugly church buildings which deserve no public funding on social or aesthetic grounds. Blanket exemptions are entirely unjustified.