ttbn - Quote "Christian churches and their offshoots save tax payers massive amounts of money with their charitable works"

You may be right but you may be wrong, remember when the boats were coming the charities that includes some church charities wanted the government to bring them all here so they could help them they stood to get multi millions of dollars to do so.

Charities get lots of money to look after refugees.

Going back somewhere like 30 years the Catholic church was the biggest business in the world, even owned Kraft so if they any church has profit based businesses that should be taxed otherwise it gives them an advantage over similar businesses in private hands.

Get Rid of Money Quote "We should make everything free." Stupid statement, if you give everything away for free what idiot is going to work to make it in the first place?

Philip S,

I think the second sentence of my post above yours sums up what I think about that. The church luvvies are just virtue signalling to attract people who hate them, the poor, simple fools. Top offenders are the Uniting Church and the low Church of England. The Salvos? Not sure that I regard them as a religious domination, but they are well thought of for their help to Australians, and I think that they should stick to that. I know many people who have stopped donating to the Salvos because they don't want their money going to illegal entrants or faux refugees.

I can be a smarty at times, in truth we all can, but please tell me, is it ok to impose tax on the average workers but not a Church he/she does not believe in? can we separate the faiths we like but think the faith we do not like are fair game? what is the purpose of tax if it is not to pay for the things we all use or in the case of welfare may/will use? then why should some who make huge sums not pay, is it ok for true not for profits, usually in some way in the service of the community to not pay tax, in my view yes it is ok Churches surely, with massive bank accounts should return some of it to those in need

Belly,

I get it. You dislike religion and want to punish it by taxing the churches.

But you are determined to avoid the implications of that change of policy in that a lot of other groups will be caught up in your vendetta.

BTW, you want to tax all faiths. Define faith. Christian of coarse. Islam? Hindi? Buddhist? Gaia worship? Jedi? The tax act could become quite voluminous and quite philosophical.

My thoughts:
Should a person be taxed on gifts?
Say if I gave you $100 Belly, do you think you should pay tax on that gift?
Likewise, if you gave me $100, should I pay tax on your gift?

I think if you or I want to give each other money the government need not take a cut.

So overall I think if people want to give their money away it's their business, and there's no need for the government to be double dipping on monies already earned.

I probably have more an issue with people blindly following certain flawed and illogical belief systems without instead just learning ethics and staying better grounded.

Dear Belly,

Where would we be without
Vinnies, The Salvation Army, Father Riley's - Youth Off
The Streets, to name just a few religious charities.
These organisations represent Religion at its best.

According to The Guardian (link given below) -

"The high court of Australia states for church bodies to
qualify as religious institutions the church body must: be
instituted for promotion of a religious object; its activities
must reflect that character; and its practices and conduct
must not offend against the laws of Australia."

A former Assistant Taxation Commissioner Terry Hamilton
points out that "The Royal Commission into institutional
responses to child sexual abuse found more than 4,000 children
were sexually abused in 1,691 different institutions, including
2,489 children sexually abused in 964 religious institutions
managed by the Catholic Church." Lets also not forget that
Cardinal Pell's trial will be coming up shortly.

"The associated crimes in these cases break the taxation law
obligations that must result in a forfeit of tax exemptions
and the registration of tax-exempt charities."

The tax exemptions costs Australia over 30 billion dollars a
year - and there is no transparency or accountability required.
This needs to change. Especially in the cases of
charities who may discriminate according to their religious
convictions - for example - refusing care and aid to gay people?
We are a secular state - shouldn't church and state be
separate? Especially with institutions that have a great deal
of explaining to do.

http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2018/aug/18/churches-should-lose-charity-status-over-child-abuse-former-tax-head-says