I’ve been vindicated, church caught with hands in cookie jar

[Calm]

13 minutes ago, JustAnAustralian said:

A bit of both. A donation over $2 to an organisation on the DGR can be counted as a charitable donation for tax purposes.

Door knockers, tables at markets etc will generally give you a receipt at the time. One-off online donations do the same thing (or at least have in the past when I've done them). 

If you're doing regular donations (for example an automatic monthly donation) you'll get an end of year one (mine tend to be via email, see screenshot attached)

 

How do you know what percentage is taxable? That is the same as what the church hands out here in US with ID number. 

[Chum]

9 hours ago, Craig Speechly said:

It was clearly in violation of the spirit of the [tax] law.

I imagine the closest anyone gets to honoring the spirit of tax law is to not, as best as they possibly can.

Edited July 14, 2023 by Chum

[Calm]

More info:

Quote

To be a charity, your organisation must:

• be a not-for-profit
• have a charitable purpose
• be for the public benefit (other than where the charitable purpose is the relief of poverty).

Examples of charities include:

• religious groups
• not-for-profit aged care homes
• homeless shelters
• disability service organisations
• universities and colleges
• animal welfare organisations and
• artistic or cultural groups.

 

https://www.ato.gov.au/non-profit/getting-started/what-type-of-nfp-is-your-organisation-/#IsyourorganisationanNFP
 

Tax concessions:

https://www.ato.gov.au/Non-profit/Getting-started/Tax-concessions-for-not-for-profits/

[JustAnAustralian]

7 minutes ago, Calm said:

How do you know what percentage is taxable?

The amount listed on the receipt is the amount you can put in with your taxes. Everything is done at the back end. I'm not sure if there are any percentages besides 0 and 100 now as far as deductibility. If there is something it would be specified at the time of donation.

[webbles]

1 minute ago, JustAnAustralian said:

The amount listed on the receipt is the amount you can put in with your taxes. Everything is done at the back end. I'm not sure if there are any percentages besides 0 and 100 now as far as deductibility. If there is something it would be specified at the time of donation.

So is tithing currently 100% deductible? If this turns out to be an illegal scheme and the church loses the designation that allows tithing to be deducted, would they update a form or send you a letter to let you know? Would you owe back taxes?

[Calm]

11 minutes ago, JustAnAustralian said:

The amount listed on the receipt is the amount you can put in with your taxes. Everything is done at the back end. I'm not sure if there are any percentages besides 0 and 100 now as far as deductibility. If there is something it would be specified at the time of donation.

Thank you for clearing that up for me.

[JustAnAustralian]

24 minutes ago, webbles said:

So is tithing currently 100% deductible?

Correct. As long as the LDS Charitable Trust Fund (where our tithing goes) is on the DGR, it's 100% deductible.

24 minutes ago, webbles said:

If this turns out to be an illegal scheme and the church loses the designation that allows tithing to be deducted, would they update a form or send you a letter to let you know?

The donation forms would be updated (as they were when tithing was 75% only), and I expect messages would be sent out to members, with a letter to be read out from the pulpit. 

There would also unlikely to be an end of year donation summary automatically generated (since they are generated for tax purposes).

24 minutes ago, webbles said:

Would you owe back taxes?

I wouldn't want to guess at anything that goes through the mind of government organisations.

Edited July 15, 2023 by JustAnAustralian

[JLHPROF]

This whole debate depends on where you land on the sliding scale:

1. The Church is always 100% honest AND legal in all business dealings to the best of all involved's ability.  How could they be other and be Christ's Church?

2. The Church leadership directs honesty and legality but its tens of thousands of employees are humans with free will.  Someone somewhere  inevitably consciously decides to act against complete honesty and law.

3. Church leadership themselves are intentionally bending laws and directing shady honesty and justifying themselves because of their calling.

4. It's all about the money, the Church is just a corporation in disguise, its leaders CEOs, and out to get gain.

Personally I'm around about a 2 - I'm not cynical enough for 3-4 or naive enough for 1.

[Calm]

57 minutes ago, JustAnAustralian said:

I wouldn't want to guess at anything that goes through the mind of government organisations.

Given that the government has approved the Church as a DGR for that year and the members themselves had no input on whether or not the Church had gone that route, it seems like it would be highly unlikely and very unjust if they did since it would be based on the government not doing their due diligence at this point…and I think they would have given complaints about this have been public for many years, including from a candidate who is now an MP and who no longer complained once he got elected, possibly because he now knows why the Church qualifies and realizes it is not illegal and is actually a great benefit to the Developed Countries Relief Fund, just as the government hoped would happen).

[Calm]

20 minutes ago, JLHPROF said:

This whole debate depends on where you land on the sliding scale:

1. The Church is always 100% honest AND legal in all business dealings to the best of all involved's ability.  How could they be other and be Christ's Church?

2. The Church leadership directs honesty and legality but its tens of thousands of employees are humans with free will.  Someone somewhere  inevitably consciously decides to act against complete honesty and law.

3. Church leadership themselves are intentionally bending laws and directing shady honesty and justifying themselves because of their calling.

4. It's all about the money, the Church is just a corporation in disguise, its leaders CEOs, and out to get gain.

Personally I'm around about a 2 - I'm not cynical enough for 3-4 or naive enough for 1.

Same here. (Still no rep points available to me, urg)

[Calm]

This is from last year:

https://www.gotax.com.au/blog/ODY/church-donationstax-deductionstax
 

Quote

Churches are like other charities when working out if you can claim donations made to them.  This means that your church needs to be registered as a deductible gift recipient (DGR) to receive tax-deductible donations that you can claim on your Income Tax return.

To check whether your church is registered as a DGR, go to ABN lookup and enter in the church’s ABN, scroll right down to the bottom of the page, and look for the section that says "Deductible Gift Recipient" 

If they are not registered as a DGR then you can’t claim the donation as a tax deduction.

But just like other donations, if the donation is over $2, you should get a receipt from your church that says that your donation is tax-deductible. 

There will be a section on Gotax Online’s Electronic Tax Return (etax) where you can enter the amount you spent on donations and detail who you donated to. Once you have completed your income tax return you can lodge it via our etax system, then our tax experts will check it over for missed opportunities and lodge it for you. 

In the unlikely event that you get stuck at any time, you can speak to one of our fully qualified accountants via our live chat support or by filling out our contact form.

 

 

[Calm]

Some of the Catholic Churches do a similar thing as the LDS Church in Australia in that they run a DGR fund (in the below case, a school).  Any donations to that fund get full tax deduction under the DGR designation. 

https://www.abn.business.gov.au/ABN/View?abn=53011008065

The difference with the Church is because the global church went ahead and paid all the services and such that is needed by the Australian Church to keep the doors open (and more than likely paid tax as required on such materials and services needed as required by law, so not avoiding taxes there), church members can deduct all their donations to the Church….which then gives away the money to developing country relief funds.  The Church itself is not benefiting at all and might even be losing money depending on where the money comes from, because the DCDRFs do not give money to church owned for profit enterprises or for maintenance of chapels in those countries (since they don’t qualify for the funds iirc).

Since tithing usually pays for some humanitarian and other qualified for DGR approved type efforts*** (such as missionaries running English courses and the Church teaching literacy and family care where needed, helping clean up after disasters, the overhead for fast offerings and such, etc) most likely even if the Church did not use this method, I doubt that deductibility would be zero for Australian church members. 

***https://www.acnc.gov.au/for-charities/start-charity/you-start-charity/charitable-purpose

Recognised charitable purposes

'Charitable purpose' has a special legal meaning, developed over the years by the courts and parliament. The courts have recognised many different charitable purposes, and as society changes new charitable purposes are accepted.

The Charities Act 2013 (Cth) lists twelve charitable purposes:

• advancing health
• advancing education
• advancing social or public welfare
• advancing religion
• advancing culture
• promoting reconciliation, mutual respect and tolerance between groups of individuals that are in Australia
• promoting or protecting human rights
• advancing the security or safety of Australia or the Australian public
• preventing or relieving the suffering of animals
• advancing the natural environment
• other similar purposes ‘beneficial to the general public’ (a general category), and 
• promoting or opposing a change to any matter established by law, policy or practice in the Commonwealth, a state, a territory or another country (where that change furthers or opposes one or more of the purposes above)

 

Edited July 15, 2023 by Calm

[JustAnAustralian]

The church in Australia released this yesterday

https://news-pacific.churchofjesuschrist.org/article/church-issues-statement-on-reports-about-lds-charities-australia

Quote

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (“Church”) issued the following statement today in response to reports of LDS Charities Australia’s (“LDSCA”) spend on humanitarian aid having fallen in 2022.

Since the 1840s, the Church has had members and congregations in Australia. Over this time, Australian Latter-day Saints have had the choice to follow the Biblical practice of donating to pay for Church operations and making voluntary charitable donations to help care for those in need.

LDSCA is funded by these charitable donations and allocates its funds to provide humanitarian aid for the relief of poverty, sickness, suffering, distress, destitution and helplessness around the world.

The number and type of humanitarian projects varies each year. LDSCA has funded and is committed to fund appropriate humanitarian projects in 2023 and will continue to do so into the future.

The operations of LDSCA have not changed and the work of lifting lives, fortifying families and caring for communities across the world will continue.

Inspired by the teachings and example of Jesus Christ, Australian Latter-day Saints have the opportunity to continue to make voluntary donations that are used to support this important work.

Read more about LDSCA and the Church’s worldwide humanitarian efforts, here, here and here.

 

[Craig Speechly]

1 hour ago, Calm said:

Given that the government has approved the Church as a DGR for that year and the members themselves had no input on whether or not the Church had gone that route, it seems like it would be highly unlikely and very unjust if they did since it would be based on the government not doing their due diligence at this point…and I think they would have given complaints about this have been public for many years, including from a candidate who is now an MP and who no longer complained once he got elected, possibly because he now knows why the Church qualifies and realizes it is not illegal and is actually a great benefit to the Developed Countries Relief Fund, just as the government hoped would happen).

In Australia, the church has ensured that donations and tithing – neither of which are tax-deductible – are routed through a charitable trust to gain 100 per cent tax deductibility. Mormons are required to pay 10 per cent of their gross income in an income-deducting practice known as tithing, a significant financial impost on followers.

Australia is unusual among English-speaking countries in that it does not allow tax deductions for tithing or church donations. But it does allow generous deductibility for charitable giving.

 

Tithing is only deductible because of the scheme  In other words without the church funneling outside, non Australian donated money into the charity, tithing would not be deductible 

[Calm]

22 minutes ago, Craig Speechly said:

In Australia…donations and tithing – neither….are tax-deductible –

CFR the above. Everything I have read from the Australian government’s own website contradicts your claims (much of which I have linked to). Now maybe I am interpreting such wrong, but as far as I can tell the government doesn’t care what label is put on the donation including “tithing”, but what it is used for and if it’s been approved by the government (once the organization has applied to qualify).

Quite a bit of tithing is used for more than just benefits to members, including for welfare overhead, education, and advancing religion…all of which qualify according to the government’s list of deductible charitable purposes.  I am not saying it would have been 100% or even 50%, but I very much doubt it would be 0%. I think it would depend greatly on whether or not missionary work counts as advancing religion and how much of the cost for missionary needs would count towards that (transportation and teaching materials likely; not so likely room and board, but maybe; don’t have a clue about church provided cell phones as they are necessary to communicate with and about investigators).

Edited July 15, 2023 by Calm

[Calm]

This may be out of date if they have changed the definition, but if not, it seems at least some costs of missionary work would be deductible. 

Quote

To advance religion’ includes ‘to promote spiritual teaching in a wide sense, to spread its message, or to take positive steps to sustain and increase religious belief, via ways that can be described as pastoral or missionary’: Dal Pont, above n 5, 232. The High Court has defined ‘religion’ very broadly: see Church of the New Faith v Commissioner of Pay-Roll Tax (Vic) (1983) 154 CLR 120. Further discussion of ‘advancement of religion’ is beyond the scope of this article.

https://law.unimelb.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0009/1703439/35_3_11.pdf

Just started reading this, but religion appears to cover worship, prayer, and ritual. 
 

https://www.canlii.org/en/commentary/doc/2020CanLIIDocs3320#!fragment/zoupio-_Tocpdf_bk_1/BQCwhgziBcwMYgK4DsDWszIQewE4BUBTADwBdoAvbRABwEtsBaAfX2zhoBMAzZgI1TMAjAEoANMmylCEAIqJCuAJ7QA5KrERCYXAnmKV6zdt0gAynlIAhFQCUAogBl7ANQCCAOQDC9saTB80KTsIiJAA

Edited July 15, 2023 by Calm

[Calm]

JustAnAustralian, are missionary donations deductible?  Or fast offerings?

Edited July 15, 2023 by Calm

[JustAnAustralian]

22 minutes ago, Calm said:

JustAnAustralian, are missionary donations deductible?  Or fast offerings?

Fast offering is.

Can't be sure about missionary, last missionary donation I made was to general missionary and it wasn't counted in the total reportable donation amount, but that could be because it was less than a dollar.

Edited July 15, 2023 by JustAnAustralian

[webbles]

1 minute ago, JustAnAustralian said:

Fast offering is.

Can't be sure about missionary, last missionary donation I made was to general missionary and it wasn't counted, but that could be because it was less than a dollar.

I found a picture of the donation slip for Australia.  It looks like tithing, fast offering, and humanitarian aid all go to the same place - "LDS Charitable Trust Fund".  But it doesn't list where the missionary funds go.  Do they go to a different organization and if so, any idea what that one is?  Do you know if it has DGR standing?

[Calm]

7 minutes ago, JustAnAustralian said:

Fast offering is.

Can't be sure about missionary, last missionary donation I made was to general missionary and it wasn't counted in the total reportable donation amount, but that could be because it was less than a dollar.

I found a report of a court ruling for New Zealand  where parents and grandparents received enough of a benefit through their child benefitting no deduction could be taken, but no such benefit for anyone else…but how would that work with a general missionary fund?  How would the government track that?

https://bycommonconsent.com/2019/03/11/new-zealand-missionaries-and-inland-revenue/

Quote

The court’s analysis ultimately turned on the question of benefit. And it determined that there was a link between payments into the missionary fund and the church’s supporting missionaries in the field. It doesn’t matter that there’s not a direct link between the two (and, in fact, the court makes clear that it doesn’t see this as subterfuge or a sham), because the church has a strong moral obligation to support the New Zealand-resident missionaries while they serve their missions, and donors understand that their payments allow their missionary to serve and be supported where she is.

That link does not, by itself, create benefit. So the court further goes into the question of benefit. It finds that the missionary herself benefits. Yes, she works hard—this isn’t, in the court’s words, ” a situation where a person claiming a tax deduction travels overseas and performs a small amount of work for a charity, but predominantly has a holiday”—but the benefit of having travel, lodging, food, and other basic expenses met is not a minor benefit. Thus, payments by the missionary herself are not deductible.

The court also determines that payments from parents and grandparents are not deductible. Parents and grandparents benefit from seeing their (grand)child “travel, live overseas, and experience being a missionary abroad.”

But the court holds that there is no material benefit to anybody else. Siblings, cousins, ward members, and other unrelated individuals can deduct amounts they donate to the church’s mission fund, even if they do it to meet a particular missionary’s obligation, because they don’t feel the same obligation to support the missionary, and they don’t benefit in the same manner.

Anyway, there was a side remark about Australia that suggested it wasn’t deductible, but it looks like they weren’t sure. 
 

 

[JustAnAustralian]

12 minutes ago, webbles said:

But it doesn't list where the missionary funds go.  Do they go to a different organization and if so, any idea what that one is?

Given the wording of the slip, my guesses:

• General would go straight back to HQ, and so wouldn't be counted as a charity donation for us.
• Ward missionary assigned to a person would likely be seen as funding that missionary, and so wouldn't be a charitable donation (there is actually an interesting discussion about this as far as the US in Sam Brunson's book "God and the IRS")
• Ward missionary when not assigned to a person is the probably the same as ward missionary donations assigned to a person as it ultimately funds an individual.

edit: I just did a donation into ward missionary, so I will let you know in a few days where my bank statement shows it went.

Edited July 15, 2023 by JustAnAustralian

[Calm]

10 minutes ago, webbles said:

I found a picture of the donation slip for Australia.  It looks like tithing, fast offering, and humanitarian aid all go to the same place - "LDS Charitable Trust Fund".  But it doesn't list where the missionary funds go.  Do they go to a different organization and if so, any idea what that one is?  Do you know if it has DGR standing?

Nice find

[webbles]

1 hour ago, Craig Speechly said:

In Australia, the church has ensured that donations and tithing – neither of which are tax-deductible – are routed through a charitable trust to gain 100 per cent tax deductibility. Mormons are required to pay 10 per cent of their gross income in an income-deducting practice known as tithing, a significant financial impost on followers.

Australia is unusual among English-speaking countries in that it does not allow tax deductions for tithing or church donations. But it does allow generous deductibility for charitable giving.

 

Tithing is only deductible because of the scheme  In other words without the church funneling outside, non Australian donated money into the charity, tithing would not be deductible 

Is this a quote from one of the various articles?  It sounds like it.

I think I'm starting to understand what is being talked about and why people thing there is something "there".

The donation slip for Australian members states that all tithing, fast offerings, and humanitarian aid go to LDS Charitable Trust Fund.  That is a DGR approved fund (since 2000) and so donations are deductible.  But that fund isn't "the church".  The church in Australia is actually "The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints Australia" and it is NOT DGR approved.  So if you wanted to actually donate funds to "the church" in Australia, you wouldn't be able to deduct it.  "The Church Of Jesus Christ Of Latter-day Saints Australia" appears to get all of its money from the US based organization.  It doesn't appear to receive much money from Australian members (I think missionary funds go here).  This organization is what pays for everything that the stakes and wards need.

That means that the church in Australia is not funded by the local members.  All of the tithing that the local members donate is actually going to the DGR approved organization which doesn't go back to the stakes and wards.  Without the external US organization, Australia members would have to donate to the local church and not deduct it.

It appears that the issue is that members in Australia aren't technically paying tithing.  Technically, tithing is what we donate to fund the church and its operations.  None of the tithing from Australian members fund the operation of the church.  It all goes into an actual humanitarian charity.

[Calm]

5 hours ago, webbles said:

It appears that the issue is that members in Australia aren't technically paying tithing.  Technically, tithing is what we donate to fund the church and its operations.  None of the tithing from Australian members fund the operation of the church.  It all goes into an actual humanitarian charity.

Why would this be an issue?  Tithing goes to the Church, it decides what to do with it.  A lot more money goes to very worthy humanitarian projects and those of us who contribute tithing to the regular funds are helping with those projects even if we don’t live in Australia because our tithing is helping to support those who are.  I see it as a win all around.

Edited July 15, 2023 by Calm

[Bill “Papa” Lee]

23 hours ago, Craig Speechly said:

Last month I posted that the church had been caught skirting the Australian law by using the ldsAustralian charity as a shell company to funnel funds through in an attempt to make tithing donations tax deductible for Australian members. It was clearly in violation of the spirit of the law.  Well their scheme has turned into another PR disaster. things are starting to heat up. https://kutv.com/news/local/report-claims-church-changing-tax-structure-in-australia-to-avoid-breach-in-tax-laws 

 

https://www.smh.com.au/national/mormons-walk-away-from-major-multinational-tax-evasion-scheme-20230705-p5dlxs.html

Not sure if this is true, or rather some truth in it. But at least it has given you have been given an opportunity to rejoice at the flawed nature of at one person, maybe many more. What will to wish for now, or what needs to happy so you can be, “Happy and vindicated”? Or have you pinned your hopes on flawed men, or women, for recreation?