flying spaghetti monster

Message / Question

What do you think about the flying spaghetti monster church? Seriously, do you think there should be restrictions on tax exemption for churches?

Response

There is no doubt that there will be people who abuse any system that exists. The “flying spaghetti monster church” is, of course, a parody religion that started as a satirical religious protest group in the USA – there’s also churches for atheists, humanists, spiritualists and goodness knows how many other things. Australia has a very different taxation system to the USA and the tax exemptions afforded to Australian churches are not quite as generous as those offered in the USA. To maintain “charitable status” in Australia, there quite a few tests that have to be passed, so you can’t simply have a group meet together, call themselves a church and expect tax concessions. It is a lot more complicated, so in fact you can relax, there are already restrictions on tax exemption for churches.