Island Life: The World Is Full of Cu*ts
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It's not just churches, though. Charities in general are exempted from tax, churches are just the ones that people think of. The broad classes within which charity can be deemed to fall are the promotion of education, the promotion of religion, the alleviation of poverty, and the promotion of culture. The major churches come in under at least two of those grounds (religion, obviously, and also poverty), and arguably under eduction also for the ones that run schools. Potentially they're also promoters of culture, given that there are quite a few churches that are classified as heritage buildings and thus objects of cultural interest.
To try and strip churches of their tax-exempt status would require a complete overhaul of the entire structure of charities, revoking their tax-exempt status and making the country as a whole significantly poorer in the process.I know it's distinctly unfashionable on PAS to not bag organised religion at every turn, but there's a saying involving babies and bath-water that springs to mind when people start agitating to remove the tax exemption on churches because they see the likes of Scientology and Pope Brian.
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Uh, yeah, that sign is pretty obviously referring to the Cult of St Nazaire.
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The gifts for Brian are gifts after all. It's the contracted tithings and there inforcement, along with the imposed excile to South Auckland that are of concern.
They are "gifts" of cold, hard cash -- solicited from a position of power and rationalised with a cynical reading of scripture.
But it's actually the Proton companies that bug me. Tamaki and his wife are the sole owners of businesses that sell goods the church tells its followers they must buy. Tamaki is milking these people in so many ways.
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Uh, yeah, that sign is pretty obviously referring to the Cult of St Nazaire.
No it's not.
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Joe, yip it is for some, for others St Francis is a guiding light.
http://www.catholicworker.org.nz/cg/CG50-AGreenSaint.htmRussell, sure Brian is fleecing the flock & his scripture reading is a crock.
Fundamentally what is the difference between Destiny & Proton as opposed to Global Plus/AA/Airpoints as a means of cornering a segment of the market?
The Church members see a value in their money is getting them their points to heavan rather than Fiji. Brian sees it as both. -
I know it's distinctly unfashionable on PAS to not bag organised religion at every turn, but there's a saying involving babies and bath-water that springs to mind when people start agitating to remove the tax exemption on churches because they see the likes of Scientology and Pope Brian.
It's unfortunately true that the social welfare arms of the Presbyterian, Salvation Army and Baptist churches, to name a few, have been more proactive in dealing with the corrosive effects of loan sharks on low-income groups than the government agencies charged with regulating such activity. While the Clark Government eventually passed some half-hearted regulation, it's rather telling that certain churches take the message of social justice more seriously than the party supposedly founded on those principles.
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Although actually said churches are also supposedly founded on those principles.
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Joe, yip it is for some, for others St Francis is a guiding light.
Thanks for the link J.T. In fairness to St. Francis, there are a hell of a lot of critters that appear to blatantly ignore his teachings.
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Yes, cult means worship/religion in Italian so by parentage I think probably in French as well. It's a word used in several official denominations - a priest is a minister of the cult, for instance.
I think you can quite safely put it down to the translation being done by a non native speaker of English.Aha! Now I see how it must have been a Scotsman of French-Italian parentage that founded the oc-cult.
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Silly me, I spelt Ku*t Vonnegut wrong up there...sorry about that.
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But, honestly, the fact that religious groups get away from tax on the presumption that all religious activity is charitable is the real issue that needs to be addressed. Pity no-one will touch it.
When I was in Melbourne, the Victorian state government had just caved to the Catholic Church bleating that being held to laws prohibiting employment discrimination on the basis of marital status, sexual orientation and religion was an attack on "religious freedom". Was gratified to see people pointing out that if religious organizations want the freedom to discriminate against tax-paying citizens on religious grounds, then they should no longer be allowed to put their begging bowls out for public money. After all, fags, fornicators, adulterers and infidels don't get to opt out of paying their taxes because they don't approve of where it goes.
That's not throwing out the bathing baby because it peed in the bathwater, but suggesting that you can't have a bet both ways because you're wearing a dog collar. Unless you're taking the collection plate to the TAB, which is just wrong.
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Fundamentally what is the difference between Destiny & Proton as opposed to Global Plus/AA/Airpoints as a means of cornering a segment of the market?
Well, for one thing, "user rewards" (for want of a better term) aren't coupled with the threat of eternal damnation if you don't buy from the approved outlets. The usual term for threatening people if they don't give you money is extortion, and there's certainly no extortion involved in the relationship between, say, AA Rewards and BP - to the point that no number of AA Rewards Points could induce me to buy my petrol from BP, unless it's the difference between running out of petrol or not.
Pope Brian, on the other hand, waves the stick of hellfire and damnation if his followers don't hang off his every word. Were he hanging over them the stick of a visit from "the boys" would you be so quick to dismiss the Proton/Destiny link as akin to BNZ Visa and GlobalPlus? -
Were he hanging over them the stick of a visit from "the boys" would you be so quick to dismiss the Proton/Destiny link as akin to BNZ Visa and GlobalPlus?
I'd also note that I've not been required to swear a person oath of fealty to the CEO of my bank -- all while avoiding impertinent and ungodly"familiarity." Though I'm waiting for the Big Giant Head of Jim Bolger to denounce everyone who isn't with Kiwibank as unpatriotic tools. :)
I can also go to church on a Sunday without being exhorted to patronise diocese-owned businesses, or else.
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I know it's distinctly unfashionable on PAS to not bag organised religion at every turn, but there's a saying involving babies and bath-water that springs to mind when people start agitating to remove the tax exemption on churches because they see the likes of Scientology and Pope Brian.
I have no problem with churches having tax-exempt status for income that goes to charitable activity, or charities in general having tax-exempt status. I just think that to get it, churches' books should be open, and it should be restricted to actually charitable activity - i.e. education, feeding people, that sort of thing. Promotion of religion or paying clergy? Not in and of itself charitable. At the least, the money used to pay the clergy should be subject to income tax, it if isn't currently. After all, they're making a living off it. Social workers don't get off income tax because they're doing a community good.
As it stands, the system is open to a lot of abuse. Of course if more stringent standards were in place people would find ways to get around them - list people as being employed to do direct charity when in fact that's only a small proportion of their time, etc - but it'd be better than it is now.
Pope Brian, on the other hand, waves the stick of hellfire and damnation if his followers don't hang off his every word.
And you really can't underestimate the amount of peer pressure and public shame used to get people - often those with little disposable income - to tithe, and behave, "properly". I've seen what happens when people try to leave that sort of group; it's ugly. Nothing about that sort of pressure on people is worth any sort of respect.
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At the least, the money used to pay the clergy should be subject to income tax, it if isn't currently.
Why wouldn't it be? Clerics are employees, and subject to PAYE just like any other employee. Churches have to pay ACC levies, too. Heck, they even have to buy insurance.
Not having to pay income tax on their own income doesn't mean that churches are entitled to any other particular special treatment around their outgoings, except for the rating exemption on premises used primarily for worship. -
I can also go to church on a Sunday without being exhorted to patronise diocese-owned businesses, or else.
You're clearly hanging out with the wrong crowd, Craig :P
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Why wouldn't it be? Clerics are employees, and subject to PAYE just like any other employee. Churches have to pay ACC levies, too. Heck, they even have to buy insurance.
Not having to pay income tax on their own income doesn't mean that churches are entitled to any other particular special treatment around their outgoings, except for the rating exemption on premises used primarily for worship.Which is good; I wasn't sure about that point. I still maintain that labelling any income churches receive as a charitable donation no matter what it's used for is dodgy, though.
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I can also go to church on a Sunday without being exhorted to patronise diocese-owned businesses, or else.
The Pope used to tell Italians whom to vote for. Does that count?
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The Pope used to tell Italians whom to vote. Does that count?
I don't know how they rock the vote in the home country these days, but if my parish priest tried it on in any direction he'd get told to pull his damn head in in "familiar" terms that would distress Brian The Bish mightily.
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I still maintain that labelling any income churches receive as a charitable donation no matter what it's used for is dodgy, though.
And you would like to take the on the challenge of drafting the legislation to close the loophole? You would, I assume, make it applicable to all classes of charity rather than just religious ones? Where would, say, Dilworth fit into the picture?
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My old Manager used to tell me and the whole office who to vote for. - He was a dick.
Some things were bad and are getting better, valid criticism can be positive and create a better future.
What succession planning does Brian have in place, who will replace him or are they gonna pass the Kool-aid?
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I don't know how they rock the vote in the home country these days, but if my parish priest tried it on in any direction he'd get told to pull his damn head in in "familiar" terms that would distress Brian The Bish mightily.
Millions of communists voted for the communist party anyhow, in spite of the automatic excommunication that survived well into the Sixties.
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And you would like to take the on the challenge of drafting the legislation to close the loophole? You would, I assume, make it applicable to all classes of charity rather than just religious ones? Where would, say, Dilworth fit into the picture?
I'd say those rules should be generally applicable; if you're going to give people tax-exempt status they should have to pass pretty stringent tests to prove they deserve it. Dilworth seems extremely straight-forward to me; they're operating a school, i.e. educating people, i.e. a directly charitable act. If the money is funding that, then why would any reforms affect them?
Thing is: yes, of course it would be difficult and no, I'm not a tax lawyer. But I fail to see why that should stop anyone trying or why that means I'm not allowed to opine on it. The basic difference of opinion seems to be whether the promulgation and running of religion should be defined as a charitable act; I don't think it should be, because while religious people and bodies can do charitable things, religion *as an entity* is not necessarily charitable or helpful.
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And you would like to take the on the challenge of drafting the legislation to close the loophole?
Oh yes; oh yes, oh yes, oh yes.
The classification of charitable purpose (religion, education, relief of poverty and general good - I think you got the last one wrong Matthew: culture is not a purpose in itself, so far as I know) was the result of a 19th Century judgment by the Law Lords of the House of Lords, in the Old Country. It has never been before our House of Representatives, it has never been law.
In effect, the likes of Tamaki and a whole bunch of other people do not have to pay income tax because of a legal decision made more than a century ago in another country. The assumption of that decision was that the promotion of religion was a public good, an assumption that few would share today.
There really is no correlation between a charitable purpose such as relieving poverty and that of the practice and promotion of a particular religious opinion. The unavoidable truth is that Tamaki and many others are coining it because of an outdated notion of what constitutes charitable purpose.
As for Dilworth: it is an anachronism. We now have a public education system. That said, Dilworth at least provides private schooling for those who cannot afford it; other private schools like Kings and Dio benefit from charitable status, although they educate the children of the very rich and charge fees accordingly.
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There really is no correlation between a charitable purpose such as relieving poverty and that of the practice and promotion of a particular religious opinion. The unavoidable truth is that Tamaki and many others are coining it because of an outdated notion of what constitutes charitable purpose.
Yes, that, precisely.
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