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Why Canada 1st, Australia last?
Economy forces B.C. town to re-examine tax breaks for churches
Providing spiritual guidance may not be enough to warrant exemption
Yer darn tootin’ it aint’!
Spirits do not exist. “Spiritual guidance” is a con. A fraud, an unconscionable rip-off.
Should churches and religious organizations continue to receive automatic tax exemptions?
A couple of years ago, the little town of Gibsons, on British Columbia’s Sunshine Coast, began to ask those questions in earnest. Squeezed between a contracting economy and a provincial government that was off-loading costs to municipal governments, the town, like many other small towns across the province, had to account for every tax dollar it collected and spent.
No.
Should community groups?
No.
So in the 2007-08 tax year, Gibsons’ council put the town’s dozen tax-exempted properties on notice: By the 2009-10 tax year, they would have to justify the reasons why they received their exemption or risk losing it.
Eight of those properties were churches or had religious affiliations. Gibsons was challenging the automatic tax-exempted status that religious institutions have always enjoyed.
“The town of Gibsons is a progressive little place,” Mayor Barry Janyk said, “and we just felt it was the appropriate thing to do if the taxpayers of the community — the businesses and residential owners — were being asked to contribute. And I don’t see from the response that we got that any of the dozen potential listers were objecting to it.”
About the author
A passionate defender of equality of opportunity. A scientist who prefers to use evidence rather than dogma or superstition. A despiser of "Faitheism" & Accomodationism. One who knows that religions have exceeded their "best before" date by thousands of years.
| Print article | This entry was posted by Michael Kingsford Gray on April 30, 2010 at 5:58 pm, and is filed under Activism, Society. Follow any responses to this post through RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed. |
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