Posted by Running Man [RunningMan] on August 01, 2000 at 07:45:38 {sX1Pny8GEAlLCr7htMtU1l4cklgBgk}:
A few days ago, a link was posted regarding the Society's submission to the House Committee on International Relations. It took me a few days to digest it. As a Certified Accountant, I was interested in the specific tax implications. I found that it was filled with rhetoric, and contained embarrassingly inaccurate tax arguements.
For example, take a look at the section on Sweden. The Society argues that "...if Mary had attempted to render such a service today, Sweden would require Jesus to pay a tax of 10 times the value of the gift for Mary's personal service...".
This arguement makes no sense whatsoever. First of all, the issue is not the taxation of personal gifts between individuals. I'm not familiar with Sweden, but in Canada, our GST does not apply to gifts. Sweden is taxing multi-billion dollar corporations for circumventing the value added taxes by bartering for goods and services. The Society clearly does this by trading room and board as partial payment for labor.
Secondly, the government is requiring that tax be paid as a percentage of the fair market value. The Society is implying that the tax would be 10 times the market value.
The article was very interesting from another point of view, though. I did not realize that their tax problems were as numerous and diverse as they are. It appears that not only France, but also Germany, Austria and Sweden are assessing the WTS for large amounts of money. It looks like they won't be able to get away from the European tax man as easily as they did in North America (with the donation arrangement). For the first time ever, I would like to send my sincere best wishes to the tax departments.
If the Society has any hope of winning any of these cases, they will need to be prepared to spend a lot on legal fees, because apparently, the home-made talents of Philip Brumley are somewhat lacking.
If any of you missed the article, it is:
http://www.house.gov/international_relations/full/relminor/brumley.htm