How's this for a worry, $31 billion that could be assisting Medicare, university funding, rebuilding our aged school infrastructure, laying railway lines instead of motorways, all going to fund 'religion', and all based on a law from the times of Queen Elizabeth.

Could it be time to ease the business of religion into the same bracket as other global corporate industries, liable to pay taxes?

"THE tax office wants a special national body set up to monitor "not for profit" charities, admitting that churches - such as the multi-million-dollar phenomenon Hillsong - are literally "invisible" to it.

"And the sector is expanding so rapidly that $31 billion a year is now being drawn out of the federal Budget in tax exemptions to the ever-growing list of groups claiming church and charity status."

Read more here:
http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/sunday-telegraph/taxpayers-support-lavish-hillsong-lifestyle/story-e6frewt0-1225896526584

http://www.perthnow..com.au/news/national/hillsong-why-people-sign-up-for-a-lifetime-deal/story-e6frg15u-1225896551731

The Blue Cross,
What you claim is nonsense as no paid employee of the Church or of a Charity are exempt from paying tax. I am personally involved on the Board of a Church organisation and on the Board of a Charity for intellectual dissability and we are responsible to pay the employees salary, tax and superannuation. The Church offers community support in personal and family care, counselling and life skills. Your proposal is based on envy as the care of the family is just as important as laying railway lines, and currently the Government recognise that fact.

Philo...please... did I write the story?

Did I write the dodgy tax rules that give religion a free kick, or allow salary to be taken without taxes?

No.... not at all.

Your reaction is most odd.

"Lobby group Taxpayers Australia spokesman Roger Timms wants the Government to adopt Treasury secretary Ken Henry's recommendation that tax exemptions for churches be replaced with direct grants.Under the Tax Act, there is no cap on the amount of expenses churches can pay ministers of religion before incurring fringe-benefits tax"... did I say that Philo?

Or this "The Government has an opportunity to make the tax system more fair by closing the loopholes that exist for churches," Mr Timms said"?

Just because the church-religion taxrorting cover is blown, and Xenophon's Senate moves to rid us all of the filmstars religion has re-exposed what many of us have known for a long time, there is no need to be so rude Philo.

This is another bottom-of-the-harbour dodge.

Max Wallace, 'The Purple Economy'... I didn't write this.

http://www.iheu.org/the-purple-economy-supernatural-charities-tax-and-the-state

There is an OLO thread on the book:

"It’s not Christianphobia, when Kellogg’s complains of the competitive advantage of Sanitarium, a wholly owned company of the Seventh Day Adventist church. All such companies are in direct competition with other parts of the private sector, but are protected by a series of tax exemptions, not available to their competitors.

"Religious groups according to the Business Review Weekly, “are the hidden giants of the economy. In an era of corporate regulation, they are virtually unaccountable” (March 24, 2005)."

Read the OLO thread here:
http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=7592&page=0

My my, the evidence just keeps tumbling out of The Googles:

http://www.blackmagicians.com/newblog/?p=113

Even the national hotbed of Christian promotion, the ABC, is into it:
http://www.abc.net.au/rn/talks/lm/stories/s833419.htm

So you see Philo, I am not inventing this at all, nor am I suffering 'envy', but I do question why we should pay religious groups to use tax monies for their own evangelising and proselytising activities at the expense of people who need assistance to be saved from the failures of the secular state to run things better.

The Blue Cross,
I note you have chosen to pick on the Church. The fact is Government gives funds to various organisations to assist in community programmes. The charity I'm involved in gets Government funding to pay wages to staff giving care and support to parents of disabled and assistance to employ intellectually disabled clients. However all have to present tax returns.

Many Churches run programmes to develop third world countries like orphanages, food production and water supply programmes. A Church near me raises each year in the vicinity of $8,000,000 for overseas programmes for 3rd world development. They do a far superior job than Government overseas aid to third world countries. Why? Because they are committed to the people.

Philo

Taxes are paid where profits are made. That is equitable. Charities from both religious and non religious organisations remain tax-free. That is fair.

Please consider the following excerpt:

"Religious groups in Australia have a combined wealth of around $1 billion, they run cereal companies, insurance companies, wineries and pizza chains, and pay none of the income tax or capital gains tax ....

Why not? These are for-profit activities, they are not charitable or even evangelical; they are in the business of being in business, how do they manage to avoid business costs because of a misty historical precedent that has no relevance in a secular society?

Religious organisations argue that their profits are redistributed to the community in the form of charitable activities and community services. This same claim is made by purveyors of poker machines and it’s the reddest of herrings in both cases. Non-profit or charitable activities are tax deductions no matter who you are, and if all your profits are distributed this way then you will not pay any tax on them...

... but taxing business activities is not going to interfere with any religious activities, unless you want to believe in the divine properties of Weet-bix™ and So Good™. It’s fear-mongering and chest-beating to drown out the facts.

Taxes are only required where profit is generated: if the expenses of running a business (or church) are more than the income, there is no tax to be paid; if a church wants to confine itself to charitable and evangelical activities it will generate no profit and not have to worry about taxes. If, on the other hand, a religious organisation manages to extract profits from its congregation or cereal packets, it should not be allowed to hide the source or the amount of those profits from the public by covering it with a shroud of we-are-untouchable-because-of-God mysticism."

http://www.crikey.com.au/2009/11/18/xenophon-didnt-go-far-enough-no-religion-should-be-tax-free/

TBC, this certainly has been a problem for many long years. How they go about bringing reform is difficult as any suggestion that religions should pay tax would bring cries of outrage across the community.
Most churches do do extensive charity work throughout our communities and to tax this would be counter productive as government would find it impossible to take up the slack at the cost these organisations perform this work for. Possibly they could separate their charities from there churches and pay tax on their church activities with strick restrictions on the fringe benefits allowed within the charity system. In the end i don't understand the tax act well enough but surely the extreme wealth these organisations control is out of control.
10% of your income is a fairly standard rate that churches charge for eternal life. It was always expected in the Salvo's and Brian Houston is a product of that organisation.