mhaze,
(Replied in error in the other thread)

Of course a PAF must keep records to maintain its status but the only mandatory guidelines are that the fund cannot be used to run a business and the minimum $11,000 or 5% donation per annum payout and this loose arrangement has been a complaint of the ATO since the Funds were legislated. This is why they consider the funds to be a vehicle for tax minimisation.

Allowable "expenses" of the Fund are not specified and commonly disburse such things as Directors Fees to individuals and "administrative costs". Funds can and do employ family members for that purpose.

Just before it collapsed, the Shane Warne Public Fund was paying his brother "employee" more money than the Fund was distributing to charities and was running at a loss because "expenses" were taking up 86% of the revenue. Public Funds run lavish fundraising parties as an example of administrative costs.

As I mentioned, the average fund is only paying out around 8% to charities so where is the money going?

Runner,
For your info and some perspective (as if you really care) -

That "large surplus" announced in Howard's last Budget was mostly gone by the time of the November election in his frantic effort to buy votes.

Keating/Hawke inherited an economy rated at the 20th in the world in 1983 from Fraser/Howard but left it as the 6th best in the world in 1996.

By the time Howard/Costello were gone in 2007 we were back to the 9th.

Rudd/Gillard had us at the top after the GFC but by last year we were back down to the 18th and with a deficit that has been doubled, thanks to the superior economic management of the Coalition.

not-now.soon and others who want my reason for proposing we tax Faiths, there are a few, yes however with no attempt to hide it I do want more tax to be collected, from mostly those who do not pay any,it is my view we can better serve welfare if we both pay more and trim the waste fraud,multinationals are high on my make them pay list,fraud? infests both our tax and welfare, along with charities, this morning SMH worth reading two stories, bring back Abbott, stunning, but in black and white, and a named Church, that last year spent half its collected charity money on? its staff! yes too, hurtful to some but why must we fund fantasys? evolution is what we teach, but we fund some thing very different, tax if spread over us all can and needs to be at a lessor rate, a flat 20 percent, unavoidable for every one every group, can only be good for consuming, the basic of capitalism surely

Belly, you assume the development of species has nothing to do with a Creator; that it just happens without the introduction of new healthy genes. Evolution does not rule out divine intervention as you assume. However Christianity is more than how we came into being it is more about character, actions, motives, and wisdom that creates good society.

//If the taxes are placed with the unsaid intention to discourage religous activities, then it will fail horribably, and the unsaid intent will have to justify a different method of opposing religion. That's the oppression angle.

Both oppression and corruption are invited into this senerio of taxing donated money on religions.//

Suppressive actions, eh NNS? I think we've found the Scientologist, guys.

Just kidding, NNS. I know you aren't actually a Scientologist; it's just that you sounded an awful lot like one just now. Seriously, if you replaced 'oppression' with 'suppression' that could have been written by a Scientologist. Something you might want to reflect on.

Anyway, Matthew 22:15-22.

http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+22%3A15-22&version=KJV

See, even your man JC was down with the idea that the Church and the State have different spheres of influence; the Church being concerned with the immaterial - the immortal soul, the supernatural, all that jazz - while the State is concerned with more mundane and practical matters like property rights and taxation. If the Church doesn't want the State sticking it's beak into theological matters - which I suspect it does not - then it should respect that it's the State's business to determine tax policy.

And that tax policy does need tightening up. I not proposing that all not-for-profits be beaten with the same stick; we all seem to be agreed, for example, that the Salvos do good work. But at the other end of spectrum, we have the likes of Scientology who are clearly a bunch of swindlers and crooks, taking advantage of a tax loophole for their own sinister ends. What's needed is a sufficient tightening of that loophole to sort those that genuinely deserve that tax break from the dodgy bastards gaming the system, of whom there are plenty, and not just in the religious sphere.

I'm sure it's not outside the capabilities of our politicians. I mean, what else do we pay them for?

Josephus, please see the current pope, not un touched by fears he too ignored pedophilia in his Church, today said what he should have the day he took office, ABC online news this day, two men who happen to be Muslim, who happen to have their own branch one of them invented and heads, are destroying bush land on the outskirts of Sydney,building without permission, council workers are said to have needed police riot squad and air wing, helicopters,to protect them while investigating! said two did not appear in court claiming they are a religious group therefore not subject to Australian law! and we should not tax them?