The Purple Economy: Supernatural Charities, Tax and the State
In a new book, Max Wallace of the Australian National Secular Association argues that democracies should be republics characterized by constitutional separations of church and state and that it is not the role of a state to ‘advance religion’ through tax breaks.
AUSTRALIAN NATIONAL SECULAR ASSOCIATION (ANSA)
MEDIA RELEASE
ANSA is pleased to announce the publication of The Purple Economy: Supernatural Charities, Tax and the State.
The book was written by ANSA Director, Max Wallace PhD, and was published by ANSA in December 2007.
The Australian launch for the book has been delayed until February 2008 because of the timing of the Australian Federal election in early December 2007. However, the New Zealand launches went ahead in Auckland on 9 December 2007 at Rationalist House, Auckland, and Turnbull House, Wellington, on 13 December 2007.
The Purple Economy is defined as ‘the wealth generated by the eternal mass exemption from taxation of religious organizations, their subsidiaries and their charitable arms.’ Max Wallace argues democracies should be republics characterized by constitutional separations of church and state. He also argues it is not the role of a state to ‘advance religion’ through the myriad of tax breaks supernatural organizations receive by virtue of centuries old charity law. These are tithes by stealth imposed on secular taxpayers without their consent. The book concludes that supernatural organizations should pay tax like any other corporation with the same deductions allowable for charitable work.
The Purple Economy is mostly focused on Australian society but it has clear application to all other western liberal democracies on all continents.
Max Wallace argues Australian democracy was compromised by a 1981 High Court 6-1 decision in the Defence of Government Schools (DOGS) case where six judges, who had accepted British knighthoods, decided the religion clause in the Australian Constitution could not be interpreted in a republican way, even though the clause was clearly based on the US Constitution. The result of this decision was twofold: separation of church and state was abandoned and tens of billions of dollars have flowed to religious schools while public education has floundered.
The Purple Economy is currently only available in Sydney and Melbourne. Interested persons should mail their orders to
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Any businesses owned by
Any businesses owned by these religious charities are also tax-exempt. Blundell says that any business income is exempt so long as the trust, society or institution involved carries out its charitable purposes. Political sociologist Dr Max Wallace is director of the Australian National Secular Association and has just published The Purple Economy: Supernatural charities, tax and the state, which is partly what the Listener article is reporting on.
Supernatural Charities, Tax and the State
I think that it is interesting if one focuses on learning how to play with what is there in terms of legislation and the tools of legality when working with the NGO status. In the United States there are "Ethical Societies" that are organized as any religion would do, but they are basically people together for the teaching of reason, ethics, or so on - no imposition of dogmas of any kind is practiced on the children or on any member. The idea is to maintain an organization that fits the frames of tax exemption and may as well benefit from the advantages of NGO status. Instead of complaining against the benefits of the religions, Humanists all over should organize such groups and claim their right to identical tax exemption for their own organizations. This calls for the imperative necessity of becoming and staying organized as a community of like-minded non-theists.