Mormon Tax Evasion in Australia?

[Moksha]

The Church is being accused of tax evasion in Australia.

https://www.theage.com.au/national/morm ... 5a98p.html

On another front, the MD&D board is defending the Church's use of a loophole (hey, other religionists could get this break if they formed shell corporations and declared their tithing to be charitable donations, and ignored the intent of the Australian tax law). They are also taking ad hominem swipes at Dr. Simon Southerton and Dr. Neville Rochow, QC.

(If I remember my Rumpole of the Bailey correctly, QC stands for "Queer Customer")

https://www.mormondialogue.org/topic/74 ... -involved/

[Marcus]

A fascinating comment in San article about this, about why the lds church is hoarding so much

University of Tampa professor of sociology Ryan Cragun, an expert on Mormonism who grew up in the religion, said the Church was vastly different then than it is today….

Cragun says Church leaders live comfortably but all this wealth - the $US100 billion investment fund, the tax minimisation - is not about personal enrichment. Rather, he suspects, it’s about long-term corporate planning.

Many of its current leaders - called apostles - have backgrounds in senior positions from the corporate world and run the Church as a business, he says.

“My sense is they know what’s coming. As far as secularisation goes, they’re losing young people in droves. They’re not really getting any converts in Australia or New Zealand, or most of Western Europe at this point. Even Eastern Europe, they’re not getting anybody, Africa, OK, they’re doing OK there. But even in South America, they’ve kind of mined that,” he says.

”My sense is they’re reading the tea leaves saying… that donating members are going to begin to shrink. How are we going to maintain all the properties that we own, all the stuff that we’re doing?“

He surmises that the “massive war chest” is designed to allow them to “just live off the revenue from that indefinitely into the future, that’s my best interpretation”.

https://www.smh.com.au/national/making- ... 5a9c1.html

Of course, they’ve been hoarding presumably for a long time, so it’s hard to say if this reason explains past hoarding.

[Moksha]

Cragun says Church leaders live comfortably but all this wealth - the $US100 billion investment fund, the tax minimisation - is not about personal enrichment. Rather, he suspects, it’s about long-term corporate planning.

Prior to the big leak, only six people knew the extent of this "corporate planning". Anyway, I suspect the Church will be able to make these Australian and Canadian charges go away with some charitable donations to the proper Authorities.