Thermoman

I particularly enjoyed your first and last paragraphs in yours post.

Cheers
Kay

Thermoman - "By all means tolerate religions but why give them special tax treatment? They should be treated like the businesses they are and taxed at the normal rate" - the reason religious organisations were given tax exempt status was because they did charity work that the government could not afford. You would need to show that this situation has changed, else all charities should be taxed, which is not a solution you would want I am presuming.

brushbread - "Indeed, if killing each other apart from WW1 and WW2 is the problem, there is little doubt that in the last two hundred and fifty years Christian nations must win the inglorious medallion, pepped up so much by the Germanic genocide of six million Jews. But also British and European colonialism can count up to many millions, as can Russian Siberian advancements, even before the millions put to death by the Soviets." - you say to leave ww1 and 2 out of the discussion but then go on to cite the germans in ww2? The Germans were not Christians, Hitler had started his own new religion, not even based on Christianity but on Germanic pagan beliefs. You then cite the Russians, who were communists (atheists), as representing Christian agression. You also cite american in the last century and british and european colonialism, but fail to see that these were not states run by Christianity, but states where Christianity is present. So the leaders of these regimes were bad Christians, and not even acting on Christian beliefs, yet you use these situations to claim that Christianity is to blame. Surely if this was an argument directed at Islam, you would say not to judge the whole because of a few, but seeing as it is Christianity you target, there is no need for such reason?

fide mae, "You would need to show that this situation has changed, else all charities should be taxed, which is not a solution you would want I am presuming."

Simple solutioon is to treat the genuinely charitable work as tax exempt and the other stuff gets treated the same way as any other interest group is treated which has property, employs staff, spends money on advertising etc. I'm fairly confident that the direct "charitable work" of churches I was involved in was very minimal apart from the odd special appeal for disasters much like many other organisations run.

Most of the money was spent on running the church, entertaining the members and marketing (outreach/missionary type activities) rather than on no strings giving to help the needy. The level of book keeping required in any modern church should make it possible to keep track what is charitable and what is not.

Any of us claiming tax exemptions have to be able to justify the exemption, the same kinds of mechanisms should be applicable to churches - receipts, log books, estimates of proportion of usage etc. If I give a charitable donation I keep a receipt, if I claim a tax deduction for my home PC it is an estimate of the proportion of usage spent on work related activities - you get the idea I hope.

For the record I don't regard activities which are primarly missionary in nature as charitible, rather like a "free" sausage sizzle as part of a marketing event for the local car yard.

R0bert

Can someone please tell me which religious group is getting tax exemptions?

In my local church, we are registered as a "Not for Profit" organisation

As I understand this means we are obviously not to make a profit

This does not however relieve us from our legal liabilities regarding the quarterly B.A.S. reporting and remittance of payments regarding G.S.T. and P.A.Y.G.

Are bigger churches receiving better "tax breaks" or is it reserved for some special organisations?

________________

The Alchemist,

"True love, caring and reality requires no enforcement, it speaks for itself."

If you really love someone - a child for example - and you know that they can hurt themselves by doing something potentially dangerous, wouldn't you warn them about it, perhaps lay some ground rules, and be forceful if they don't respond?

The definition of God's love is beyond all comprehension. The warning signs are real - but people are free (like you) to ignore them.

Regrettably you don't know what you're doing (now). You only consolation is your partial intellect - that is no match to the creator of the universe we live in.

It is sad to watch you and others here self destruct, claiming that you have discovered the secrets of life, when in fact you only know what you can comprehend, missing out on the much greater multidimensional life.

I also wish that you make an effort and understand the serious situation we are facing in this country namely Islam. OK you can dig dirt on other religions to your heart content – but please believe me (and others) that Islam is different.

Islam is a dangerous cult disguised as a mainstream monotheistic religion. Its only agenda is total world domination. Real Christianity has no such ambition. Please acknowledge this difference if you want to continue to enjoy a secular country.

Thank you

Coach
Not-for-profit does not mean that your association’s income cannot exceed expenditure. It means that profit, or excess, cannot be distributed to the members of the association or its directors (or anyone else). Effectively, the whole of the profit, or excess, must be applied towards achieving of the objects of the association.

As to “tax breaks”, visit the ATO web site at http://www.ato.gov.au/nonprofit/

Coach, a major tax-break is that some donations by individuals to charities are tax-deductible. So if you are on the top tax rate and donate $100, you get $48.50 off your tax bill. This probably means that many people donate twice as much as they would without the tax break. This applies mainly to donations to "education building funds", for which quite a lot of charities/not-for-profit organisations qualify. Many also get GST exemptions.