Should religions get tax breaks?
Last Tuesday I attended a conference organized by the Charity Commission for England and Wales. Representatives of the main religions and of the British Humanist Association spent the day trying to answer a number of questions that the Charity Commission has to answer in the next month or two.
Before I ask you the questions, I’m afraid I will have to explain one or two boring details about English charity law. Bear with me.
First of all, there is no way in English law to register a religion as a religion. From time to time, Baha’i National Spiritual Assemblies (national governing councils) from other parts of Europe write to the UK National Spiritual Assembly to ask what we had to do to register the Baha’i Faith as a religion in the UK, just as they have to do in their countries. The answer is? Nothing! We have no Ministry of Religion, no bureaucracy to regulate religions as religions. The state is, generally speaking, not interested in defining what is and what is not a religion, preferring to leave this to the courts.
However, if, for some strange reason, I wanted to persuade people that worship of, oh I don’t know, let’s say watermelons would redound to their spiritual health, the courts might now accept my claim that I had established a religion with charitable objects. In English law, a “religion” must believe in a transcendent object (let’s say a “supreme being”) and express that belief through worship.
Even thought we don’t need to register ourselves as a religion, we are registered as a charity with religious objectives (or objects, to use the legal term), and that means we can reclaim the income tax paid by those who donate to the Baha’i funds on the amount they have donated.
Until 2006, charities with religious objects - “the advancement of religion” is, in English law, a legitimate charitable object - were presumed in law to provide a public benefit.
No longer. The Charities Act 2006 removed what’s known as “the presumption of public benefit”, and religious charities, like any other charities, will have to demonstrate that they provide a public benefit before they can get the tax breaks. The National Spiritual Assembly of the Baha’is of the UK, along with all other religious charities, will have to pass the public benefit test.
So now the Charity Commission has to do a couple of things before it can implement the new law. It has to:
- Define various terms that appear in the legislation.
- Decide in what ways religions and non-religious belief organizations (such as the British Humanist Association) can satisfy the public benefit test.
But the language embedded in the legislation is problematic in a multi-faith society. Not every religion believes in a “supreme being”, a transcendent creator God, nor does every religion incorporate acts that would be considered as “worship”.
The questions
So they sat us down in groups of 8 and asked us to help them by answering the following questions:
- The meaning of religion in a multi-faith context, including:
- What does “supreme being” mean?
- What does worship mean?
- What does the “advancement of religion” mean?
- What we mean by “religious beliefs” and “non-religious beliefs”
- What are the characteristics of charitable belief systems, whether religious or non-religious?
- What are the characteristics of a religious belief system - i.e. a religion?
- What are the characteristics of a non-religious belief system?
- There must be an identifiable benefit
- How do benefits differ between religious and non-religious belief systems?
- Are there moral and ethical codes in all belief systems?
- What about spiritual benefits?
- What about potentially harmful aspects? What might they be? How are they balanced against the benefits?
- Benefits must be to the public or a section of the public
- Who benefits?
- How do religious/non-religious belief communities engage with the public?
- Is proselytizing a proper charitable purpose? How do we define proselytizing?
- What about benefits to spiritual leaders and trustees of religious charities?
- Is it charitable to provide accommodation, living expenses, etc. to members of the faith community?
The answers?
Truth be told, the discussion around our table (one Baha’i, three Christians, a Humanist, a retired academic with an interest in new religious movements, an official from the Department of Communities and Local Government, and a senior Charity Commission staff member) produced rather more fog than clarity, more questions than answers.
So I am going to leave you to try to answer them for yourselves!
And think about this. Should religions be supported by state funding (whether direct or indirect)?
Technorati Tags: Baha’i, Bahai, Christianity, Humanism, religions, charity, Charity Commission, public benefit, tax relief
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10 comments
Absolutely not. In the USA religious buildings are not subject to property tax. What happens with this, is that the government has to define religion, which I do not believe can be done. What about Unitarian Universalists, their official creed neither accepts nor denies a supreme being, many of them are atheists, many are Christians. Or what about Humanistic Judaism, a group of very religious atheist Jews?
Now, if you can prove you are the same sort of charitable organization as any other, perhaps. Us Bahá’ís have many charitable organizations being run under Bahá’í principles and by Bahá’í, those should receive benefits, but the Mashriqu’l Adhkar in Wilmette Illinois, most definitely should have to pay taxes just like any other organization.
Barney, it’s not really a surprise that more fog than clarity was produced. To me it seems rather a challenge to answer these questions even from a single belief system, let alone from a ‘neutral’ point of view. I do not envy the Charity Commission.
Still, these questions are very interesting starting points for individual or group deepenings! They all seem to revolve around the central question: what on earth is religion?
Martijn, I think you are absolutely right. These are questions about which great philosophers and theologians have debated for centuries. We had about three hours to answer them!
And, yes, some of the questions would be interesting starting points for study and deepening.
Interesting post there Barney, so good, I had to give it my own spin; http://tobstv.blog.co.uk/2007/11/03/do_reiki_healers_deserve_tax_breaks~3241876
Dear Barney,
Am I right to guess that the aforementioned ‘retired academic with an interest in NRMs’ is Eileen Barker?
much love,
Thanks for the Tobstv take on the whole matter, Toby!
Erfan, yes, you are right, the retired academic is Eileen Barker, who is a good friend.
I was surprised about your statement about religions without belief in supreme being or worship. Then are we really talking about religion? I think they’ve got it right to define religion by belief in a supreme being or condition and acts of worship. That clarifies between religion and association.
Whether the state should assist. The question should rather be, as I think they are asking, are there benefits gained for the state as a whole by the activities of the religion. The state might therefore want to define those things that might be of benefit that they cannot deliver themselves eg psychological robustness, increased volunteering and caring eg for the elderly, the environment,etc., supporting education and social behaviour, improving democratic participation, minimising violent behaviour. Many of these have been shown by research to be benefits of religion in society.
Perhaps then religions should receive tax breaks but have to undergo evaluation every, say five years, to prove that their activities maintain the benefit, and that none of their activities can be shown to be detrimental to the standards of a progressive society. Such an idea would not only challenge religions, it challenges the state to understand its own identity and vision of society.
Owen, your ideas are very interesting and relevant to the challenge the Charity Commission has in trying to find suitably inclusive definitions to give meaning to the Charities Act 2006. Sadly, though, they are stuck with the legislation. Possibly had there been a completely fresh start, it might have been possible to focus on rewarding acceptable and fruitful outcomes rather than on trying to say whether or not any given organization or set of beliefs is a religion or not.
The question in your blog is very important to discuss in detail because it is very important and the Eight questions are good to discuss on the issue. I think you will get the correct answers very soon. Yes from my point of view religions should get tax breaks by that you can develop the religions in different aspects by that tax.
Thank you for your comments, Christianity. It seems to me that the Charity Commission is asking questions that will, in some ways, define the nature of British society for the coming decades. What place does religion have in the public square? Should religious charities receive support from the public purse to pursue their objectives? Which objectives are legitimate? And so on.
Challenging questions for any government and, indeed, for the faith communities.
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