Australia has many organisations, religious and otherwise, doing fabulous community work that could not be funded by governments.
For example; Blue Care & Frontier Services (Uniting Church); St Vincent de Paul (associated with the Catholic Church, but not funded by it), Masonic Care Queensland (Freemasons). Etcetera.
Quite rightly, these organisations have been granted Charitable Status, so rather than having to fork out tax, all their profits can be reinvested in their worthy community programmes.
But there are a number of organisations in Australia who have been granted charity status, who are promoting particular causes that stray away from what the general public would believe should be effectively funded by them (via exemption from tax paying); and/or they appear to have no positive or hands-on activities whatsoever.
Animals Australia is perhaps the most obvious example. Charitable status, recipient of government grants – yet money appears to only be spent on staff wages and campaigning against animal-related industries, such as sheep and cattle farmers. This includes expensive advertising campaigns on television etc.
The other curiousity is that Sanitarium falls under the umbrella of the Seventh-Day Adventist church’s charitable status also. Sanitarium is a business that competes head-to-head with Australian owned food manufacturing businesses, that do not have charitable status. Sanitarium’s attempt at justifying their company profit tax exemption is laughable. If this was all it took, every company in Australia could apply for exemption from paying tax:
“Sanitarium Health Food Company was registered as Australia’s first health food company in April 1898. It was established by the Seventh-day Adventist Church in Australia to promote and produce plant-based health foods based on its belief that plant-based diets are designated by God, our Creator, for the health of the human race. Worldwide, the Church operates health food industries and health-care services based on this philosophy.
Sanitarium’s enduring mission is to “inspire and resource our community to experience happy, healthy lives”. As such the Seventh-Day Adventist Church and Sanitarium continue to share an explicit common reason and purpose of existence.
Sanitarium is a leader in producing foods of the highest nutritional value and appeal. It invests significant resources into community nutrition education through its Sanitarium Nutrition Services, providing unbiased advice and consultation to both health professionals and the community. Promoting vegetarianism, no doubt, as this is a core 7th Day Adventist belief. This has been written about in an earlier post.
The Company is a generous supporter of the community through charity partnerships.
In relation to Sanitarium’s tax status, it is important to note the following:
- Sanitarium is proud to be a part of Australia’s essential charitable sector. Any actual details?
- The Company pays all local, state and federal taxes that apply to Australian companies apart from company profit tax. No tax payable on profits – and no details publicly available. ‘Apart from’ is rather more significant than implicated!
- 100% of Sanitarium’s profits are given to the Seventh-day Adventist Church in Australia, (Seventh-day Adventist Church headquarters are located in USA) for its charitable activities which include many projects that benefit the community in Australia. These include health education for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders, hospitals, educational facilities, financial support for the Adventist Development and Relief Agency (ADRA), as well as many family services and community projects. What, exactly? Details? Apart from sponsoring iron man events – which is simply straight out commercial marketing? Owning a massive business such as Sanitarium, surely there’d be Australia-wide 7th Day Adventist community services such as hospitals, nursing homes, aged care facilities or drug & alcohol rehab programmes etc, like other charities have?
- There is no commercial advantage to Sanitarium from its taxation status. An unlimited tax deduction is available to all companies and individuals in Australia that donate their income to an approved charity. Bizarre statement! ‘No commercial advantage’ ok…so why not run Sanitarium out from under the umbrella of the 7th Day Adventist Church’s charity status, then, so the playing field is indisputably level?
- Sanitarium Health Food Company is 100% Australian owned and operated, all profits stay in Australia. From the above; it could be concluded that all profits are ‘donated’ to themselves anyway (parent owner – i.e. 7th Day Adventist Church) thus giving themselves a theoretical bottom line of no actual profit…(there’s more than one way of skinning a cat, so to speak).
- Sanitarium contributes to Australia’s economy through the employment of 1500 Australians, the purchase of Australian wheat and other raw materials, and working with many industry associated Australian businesses. And this is notable because….? Other companies, who don’t have charitable status, don’t do this? Perhaps we should all apply for charity status…
Published by the Communications Department – May 2008 “
If there’s too many ticks on the dog, the dog dies. I’ve said it before but it bears repeating – the time for a full review of every single entity that has been granted a tax exemption on the grounds of being a charity, is long overdue. Then there may be more money in the public purse to help fund the large number of genuine charities. Does the Australian public really think that any organisation funding promotions for particular dietary choices (not health-related; only belief-related), should be given charity status?
In the meantime, if you must eat little grain bricks each morning, buy Vita-Brits. For the life of me, I absolutely cannot see how a huge company like Sanitarium has been allowed to avoid paying company tax. And if as stated, there’s no commercial advantage – well why isn’t the 7th Day Adventist Church running it like a standard business then, without a tax exemption?
Tags: Vegans & Vegos