Post #1175142

2026-04-15 15:14 UTC

Question for non-Americans: Do houses of worship and associated business properties pay taxes in your country? Are they allowed to openly tell their worshipers who to vote for? In the US, churches are tax exempt but supposed to stay out of the political process. It obviously doesn&#39;t work well here. I was wondering what other systems have been tried.

Replies (2)

@pascaline@mastodon.nl 2026-04-15 15:30

@Uair Churches are exempt from paying taxes in The Netherlands. And this is often erm, used. I mean: I could create my Church Of Pascaline and worship numbers; the ones that are exempt from taxes for instance. I don't know if they tell their worshippers how to vote, I think they are supposed to stay out of politics but in reality, I think many probably don't.

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@maudenificent@aus.social 2026-04-15 16:14

@Uair Australia: fed/state relations are different from USA, and have been evolving …but generally speaking Fed constitution 1901 S 116 prohibits fed govt establishing any religion imposing any religious observation prohibiting the free exercise of any religion requiring a religious test as a qualification for any office or public trust under the Commonwealth. During WWI aus was predominantly white/anglo and population either church of england or roman catholic Catholic Archbishop Mannix declared WWI was “just a sordid trade war”… played a large part in preventing conscription catholic sentiment responsible for more than one split in one of the two major parties. until 1960s constitution was used an excuse for giving no taxpayer assistance to private (i.e. religious) schools demographic make-up of country altered in the last 50 years also, In 2021 the most common religions were: Christianity (43.9%) No religion (38.9%) Islam (3.2%) Hinduism (2.7%) Buddhism (2.4%) in aus, balance of political power in senate can make or break legislation, and from time to time minor parties or christians of various denominations have had some influence, but religious voters as a bloc do not have the power here they have in USA. plus, there is no voter repression in fact voting is compulsory tax law is complex, of course, but the basics : Registered religious institutions may be entitled to the following tax concessions: income tax exemption fringe benefits tax (FBT) concessions goods and services tax (GST) concessions. If your organisation is a registered religious institution, this will help you to determine the requirements for accessing tax concessions. What is a registered religious institution? Your organisation is a registered religious institution if it's: a registered charity with the Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission (ACNC) registered with the ACNC for the charity subtype 'advancing religion' an institution It does not matter if an organisation is registered with more than one charity subtype, provided one of its charity subtypes is 'advancing religion'. which is to say no one can dodge tax just by establishing some kind of religious organisation. and income is always assessable, so e.g. the wage paid to a priest is taxed as income. 1983 High Court in Church of the New Faith v. Commissioner of Pay-roll Tax decided scientology was a church for tax purposes. religion is not a trojan horse for other issues as in usa: see e.g. https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2022/05/10/abortion-history-right-white-evangelical-1970s-00031480 #Auspol #Religion #Politics

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