Non-Religious Tax Avoidance

Furthermore, academics at the not-for-profit research centre in the law school at the University of Melbourne have noticed and criticised the fact that the legislation creating the new Australian National Charities Commission (ACNC) has a section which exempts religious organisations from reporting requirements, whereas all other charities have to reveal their financial details. This could explain why the Catholic Church who first opposed a Charities Commission now supports it: it looks like they have been lobbying behind the scenes for this special privilege for religion.

This means the ACL will also be exempted from reporting requirements. When I asked, the ACNC informed me they will not be registering or regulating other not-for-profit organisations for the foreseeable future. This means the AFA and other secular not-for-profits will not be exposed to public scrutiny in the same way that religions have been exempted. That, of course, is a government decision.

Conclusion: Why does this matter?

In 2009 Perkins and Gomez estimated the annual gross cost of religion to the Australian taxpayers is $31B per annum.¹ This year, inFree Inquiry, Professor Ryan Cragun and his associates estimated the cost of religion to the United States is $71B per annum².The likely reason the Australian figure is so comparatively high is that we subsidise religious schools whereas, with some qualification, the United States does not.

The net cost of religion to Australian, US and taxpayers around the world would run into billions in each developed nation. At the same time all nations are running budget deficits, many of them huge with no obvious means of repayment. In order to rein these deficits in, governments are cutting back on health, education other welfare related expenditure and raising taxes. A significant part of the reason that governments are strapped for cash has been tax evasion and avoidance. Tax exemptions for wealthy religions are a part of the problem.

When secular organisations also seek to avoid paying tax they are effectively accepting thirty pieces of silver even though the tax they avoid is trivial in comparison to the missing revenue of religious tax exemptions. They are short-selling democracy because taxation is the means by which governments can redistribute some of that revenue for the benefit of citizens, who, for whatever reason, cannot compete in our class-based meritocracy. As Greens leader, Christine Milne, said at the National Press Club on 26 September 2012:

Tax is not a dirty word ... It is part of being a fair and sensible society that invests in caring for its own and preparing for the future.

Second, they are putting self-interest ahead of the bigger picture: the need to create truly secular governments that get out of the business of subsidising belief or non-belief. This subsidy rests on the ancient and specious grounds, that subsidising peoples' private, personal commitments is a public benefit.

That idea has its origins in the 17th century Statute of Charitable Uses when the religiosity of the monarch's subjects was assumed as a given. It is irrelevant in the 21st century.

If we are to further discuss these questions, all the issues, including the tax avoidance of the non-religious, should be put on the table. If we do not, it will not be long before the religious justify their tax exemptions on the grounds that our hands are in the taxpayers' till too.