The Sin of Taxation: How the Catholic Church robs us blind

They say there are only two constants of life: Death and Taxes.

Taxation is the bedrock of all modern societies. Not only does it fund everything we take for granted, but it is the best mechanism we have to redistribute wealth and power. While few personally like being taxed, there is a broad acceptance of its necessity and value. Of course, as most voters would know, the tax system is far from fair. From the tax breaks multinational companies get all the way to negative gearing and super concessions, the model is awfully skewed. 

While corporate vested interests and the Murdoch media monopoly heavily impact how those policies are depicted, preventing voters from having a completely informed perspective, at least they are widely discussed. Braver Labor politicians, and in more recent years Independents and the Greens, have made that discussion mainstream. 

The media keeps tabs and tracks corporate tax avoidance, and when a particular company is caught operating outside the law to avoid tax, like Uber until 2016, there is a large outcry, audit, and at least some regulatory changes. Corporations get away with a lot in this country, but there seems to be at least some desire to fight back.  

What’s infuriating is that the second largest owner of property and assets in Australia, behind only the State, pays no tax at all, and is not mentioned by any political party let alone part of any reform package. 

The Catholic Church owns about $30 billion worth of property in Australia. The total wealth of the Sydney Catholic Archdiocese is $1.3 billion. Another powerful church, the Sydney Anglican Church, owns almost half of Glebe, some of which it bought when the land was first up for sale in the early colonial period. 

The Church’s defence is predictable. They claim charity and non-profit status, arguing they provide a massive amount of services to the community. While likely true in many ways, especially in education and health, the law is clear that they don’t need to. The “pursuit of religion” is in itself considered a charitable purpose under the Charities Act which means, unlike other charities, they don’t have to prove they deserve tax exempt status and what they do is “for the public benefit.” 

This is indefensible. It incentivises prospective charities to proselytise and take an active faith-based stance, which is likely why The Paul Ramsay Foundation is the only non-university secular nonprofit with over a billion dollars of assets. 

Further, it assumes the Catholic Church and others deserve a base level of trust they don’t. Even after the historical child sex abuse scandal where 46% of parishes and around 5% of priests had open allegations laid against them, the Church was either able to settle their way out of it or just deny with only public relations damage. 

When these laws were written, it could have been argued that churches played such an active role in the public and private life that for the vast majority of Australians, special treatment made sense — but if so, that ended long ago. In the 2021 census, there were more people who chose the option “No Religion” than “Catholic.” Atheists and agnostics, in total, make up almost 40% of the population and are only growing. The Catholic Church openly campaigning against marriage equality and abortion further calls into question the disproportionate treatment they get. They are no longer representative of Australian society. 

Why then is there no political will for change? The Liberals, whose base is increasingly socially conservative, have never had a desire to change this issue, but Labor’s situation is even more concerning given its claim to being a left-wing party. 

Even since Irish Catholic immigrants became a large Labor voting bloc, the Catholic lobby has been entrenched in the party. The ALP split in 1955, led by arch-Catholic B. A. Santamaria, is the starkest example. The new Democratic Labor Party caused state and federal electoral disaster until the early 1970s. More recently, however, that influence showed during the Gillard government where it was Catholic pressure, internal and external, that ultimately forced the PM to drop the most important parts of the Gonski education reforms. 

The recent Hillsong scandal is another reminder this behaviour is ubiquitous and not going anywhere. 

We can only hope the Albanese government will be brave enough to take on what past governments would not. Since he and his ministers, however, often connect their religious upbringing to social justice in an effort to win votes, I won’t hold my breath. 

There is growing political will in this country to take on big oil and gas, gambling, and horse racing. The excessive power of religious institutions should be no different. They either have to prove every cent they spend is towards the public good, like every other charity, or start paying up.