Why the churches don’t pay tax
The government seems to prefer the idea of churches regulating themselves, which is probably a good idea, but is this because of the power the prosperity churches wield?
Retired Pastor Isak Burger, who was president of the Apostolic Faith Mission (AFM) for 28 years, has first-hand experience of just how much money passes through the hands of congregants to the front of the church. Burger tells the FM how he once went to preach at a congregation in the Eastern Cape while he was still the AFM’s president. The community was poor, but when the time came for offerings to be made, a bed sheet was laid out on the ground on which the members placed their offerings. "It was a heap of money. I could not take it," Burger says. But the community was offended. The absence of government oversight and poor communities’ "generosity towards the man of God" leaves them open to abuse by chancers. It’s a tricky issue over free choice, but this could come to an end if the recommendations of the Commission for the Promotion & Protection of the Rights of Cultural, Religious & Linguistic Communities (CRL Rights Commission) are implemented. The chapter 9 body investigated t...
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