[Editorial] Close more loopholes

The response of a major Protestant organization to the legislation of a bill to levy income taxes on members of the clergy shows why the general public has lost faith in some religious groups.

The Christian Council of Korea said in a statement that it opposed the legislation because it was more desirable for the clergy to pay taxes “voluntarily,” rather than under a binding law.

This is totally mistaken. What’s at stake here is not donating to a disaster relief fund, but paying taxes. It is simply unacceptable that the constitutional, universal obligation to pay taxes should be left as a matter of personal choice. 

The council insists that clergy members at some big Protestant churches are paying income taxes on a voluntary basis. Then why are only some doing so? Why don’t they follow the examples of the Catholic Church and the Anglican Church, all of whose clergy members have already been paying income taxes?

The council argues that taxation on clergy income is inappropriate because about 80 percent of Korean Protestant churches are so small that they cannot stand on their own financially. This too is nonsense: Should the many small self-employed businesses struggling with the sluggish economy and workers living on minimal wages be allowed to avoid taxes on their income because their economic situation is difficult?

The council said that Christian churches and organizations were not ignoring the issue and that they have been discussing ways to resolve the issue “reasonably.” Therefore, the government and the National Assembly should not have hurried the legislation, but taken time to reach a compromise with churches, it argues.

But one has heard this argument for so long -- since 1963, to be exact, when the head of the national tax office first raised the issue. Religious groups, led by the Protestant Church, opposed the plan on the grounds -- which were never convincing -- that religious services should be regarded as spiritual endeavors and not labor, and that the government could use the tax to control religion. Politicians who crave votes had sided with the opponents of clergy taxation every time there was an attempt to legislate on the issue.

It seems apparent that lawmakers -- this time too -- bore the sentiment of these opponents in mind: The revision to the tax code will take effect in 2017, one year later than originally proposed by the government.

Lawmakers also deserve criticism for excluding religious organizations from the taxation move. Levying taxes on churches, temples and other religious bodies will -- in addition to securing taxation equality -- help enhance their financial transparency, which has often been compromised by corruption.

Just two days after the National Assembly passed the bill on taxation of the clergy, the National Tax Service announced that it caught 63 organizations that had issued fake receipts for donations, which could be used to obtain tax deductions. All but three of the 63 organizations were religious groups.

This alone shows why we should try to close more loopholes in the tax system for religious groups and the clergy.