Religious organizations that contribute to the public good should be exempt from taxes. This is clear in Poland and in democracies in general, but was not immediately recognized in the Taijimen incident.
Karolina Maria Kotkowska
Many religious and spiritual movements emphasize religious considerations of the public good. What exactly “public good” means and to what extent it should be a public good is open to debate, but the general idea is not uncommon. Freedom of religion is a fundamental human right and is recognized (at least to some extent) in the legal systems of almost every country. The religiously understood public good, and the contributions of churches and spiritual groups to society, are the basis of many solutions that provide a framework for the legal functioning of various religious groups in society.
Of course, a fundamental guarantee of freedom of conscience and freedom of religion or belief is the possibility of realizing these freedoms, that is, the possibility of professing a religion and participating in its rites. This means the possibility of registering a religion as a legal entity, either as a church or as a religious or spiritual association. But another guarantee, with a special focus on the common interests arising from these associations, is the granting of various forms of tax reliefs and exemptions to these associations.
In my country, Poland, issues of conscience and religious freedom were important not only practically but also symbolically. After the Second World War, the country came under the rule of the Communist Party, which was aligned with the USSR. The ideological climate was strongly anti-religious, promoted philosophical materialism and banned manifestations of religious worship. In 1989, some important changes took place in Eastern Europe. In Poland, a “Round Table Conference” was held in April 1989, which ended with an agreement on fundamental issues for the country. In November, the Berlin Wall fell in Germany, and finally, at the end of 1991, the Soviet Union collapsed, bringing to an end a certain political and cultural era for the entire region.
Already on 17 May 1989, in the bid to regain independence and freedom, Poland passed the Law on Guaranteeing Freedom of Conscience and Religion, which not only legalised different religions but also recognised the importance of the Church and its contribution to the common good and supported it by granting (and still granting) various tax exemptions and reductions.
The law provides that legal entities of churches and other religious organizations are exempt from taxation on income derived from non-economic activities. Income derived from business activities is exempt from taxation to the extent that it is used for the following purposes:
Worship related,
Education and Development,
scientific,
Cultural,
Charity and caregiving activities,
Catechesis,
Preservation of monuments,
Religious and ecclesiastical investments;
Renovating religious and care facilities.
Those making donations for the above-mentioned purposes (religious, educational, scientific, cultural, charitable, conservation, preservation of monuments, carrying out catechesis activities, religious investments in the fields of construction, expansion and reconstruction of churches and chapels) also benefit from a tax exemption. Donations aimed at the renovation of other buildings for religious purposes, as well as other investments aimed at catechesis centres and charitable or care homes, are exempt from tax (Article 17 of the Corporate Tax Law).
Of course, it should be noted that, although Polish legislation in this area is satisfactory, practice differs from expectations. Exemptions are not easily granted. Over the past 30 years, the number of new registered churches is low and constantly decreasing, while the number of refusals to register is increasing. Of course, this is a consequence related to the unequal treatment of religions. Large churches function in a different way, there are abuses even in the matter of the aforementioned exemptions, and new religious movements are marginalized, so they often choose the path of legalizing their activities as associations rather than churches. But in the context of our topic, there are some additional points.
The relationship between taxes and the perception of activities as positive and necessary (or vice versa) seems to be crucial in using taxes in state policies. Apart from many positive examples, we have seen some cases recently where taxes are used to fight religions. Governments of countries that consider certain religions to be in conflict with their desired ideology can fight them through taxes. By imposing higher taxes in the form of fines, they can discourage religions from operating in certain territories or severely limit or make their operation impossible. One example is the fight against new religious movements in Russia, which is carried out in various ways, but sometimes through unjust taxation. Sometimes this is just a step in the anti-cult movement and can lead to further actions, such as the dissolution of Jehovah’s Witnesses in Russia.
The presented examples form a certain continuum. In very different cases, the relationship between the perceived usefulness of religion in general or of a particular religious movement to the state influences taxation. In the first case, a positive view of religion and the recognition of activities in the public interest lead to tax exemption, while in the second case, taxation is used as a form of repression.
But the third example completely avoids the conflict of whether religion or spirituality is beneficial or not to the state: this is the case of the Taijimen and the taxes that were unfairly imposed on them.
In this case, the tax was imposed, consistent with the second example, using a mechanism that arose during the era of Taiwan’s authoritarian politics in the context of labelling the group as some kind of political dissident. Members of the group were harassed, assaulted and hindered in various ways for unreasonable reasons such as “raising monsters”. One of the allegations was that the contents of the “red envelopes” given by the disciple to the master, a traditional element of the master-disciple relationship in this context, should not be considered as gifts but as tuition fees for a (non-existent) “preparatory school”.
But what makes this example different from previous ones is what happened afterwards. The Taiji group was completely acquitted of all charges, including tax evasion. Moreover, the group poses no political threat to the power of the current democratic state. And the Taiji group’s contributions to the public good, not just to Taiwanese society but to humanity as a whole, through its global outreach, are already well known and widely recognized. The only “crime” of the Taiji group’s dizi (disciples) is that they encountered an irrational and unscrupulous bureaucracy. We are on a panel dedicated to this group, where other speakers will further discuss what happened.
In Poland, the law provides that legal entities of churches and other religious organizations are exempt from taxation on income from non-economic activities, and in this regard, these legal entities are not obliged to keep the documents required by the tax law. This means that, for example, if money is collected in a basket during mass in a Catholic church, no tax is paid, even if it is a “donation” (i.e. for a special purpose announced during a church activity or meeting). In this sense, money transferred to a priest or spiritual leader in a way that is considered traditional is not taxable for either party and is not subject to tax records. In Poland or in most democracies, accusations such as those made against Taijimen more than 20 years ago would not be accepted. It is time that the absurdity of the accusations be recognized and that Taijimen’s contribution to the common interests of Taiwanese and international communities be recognized by the Taiwanese authorities.
