Religious organisations should be able to apply for charitable status for their genuinely charitable efforts, like any other charity, but not by default, and not without the same oversight as other charities.
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Could fix this with a tweak to section 5 to the Charities Act, but it requires the government to admit that religion is not a public good. Politically, I can't see that happening. However, they could add a provision where orgs lose charitable status if involved in hate speech, criminal activity etc.
You could potentially extend that to exploitative practices like tithing, labour law violations etc. to scoop up the likes of Gloriavale and a fair few megachurches. Sanitarium is trickier but you could require that anyone who uses a company structure pays corporate tax regardless of ownership.
Ironically, "advancement of religion" meant something different in the Elizabethan law from which ours derives. It covered genuinely charitable activity like founding and running schools, almshouses, & hospitals. The propaganda side of religion was covered by the CofE, which didn't need tax breaks!
Yeah, it is very hard to imagine any government actually taking that on. Short of a ground up rewrite of the Act through a Select Committee process etc, I can't see it changing.
I have suggested a couple of things they could do to tackle "religious organisations" that do terrible things and large corporates hiding behind their ownership structure. I am less worried about whether my local Methodist church that also runs a toy library or whatever also pays tax.
But you're right. As much as I would like to see a wholesale change which means the rest of us aren't cross-subsidising religious activity (with tax exemptions only applying to an organisation that does actual good) I don't think any of our major parties have the political will do fix that.
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