March 24, 2010 by admin
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Written by Our Correspondent
City Harvest Church continues to come under fire from skeptical
Singaporeans three weeks after it announced that it has bought a
$310 million stake in Suntec to be used for its worship
services.
Since then, more than a dozen of letters have been published in
the Straits Times Forum questioning if City Harvest Church should
still be considered as a charity and if the returns from its
property investments should be exempted from tax.
Two letters are published today in the Forum on the matter
alone.
Ms Tan Saw Bin who is an auditor of several charitable groups
wonder if “significant involvement in commercial activities by mega
churches, through investments in properties, still qualify the
churches as charities under the Charities Act and their
Constitutions.”
She urged the authorities including the Registrar of Societies
and Commissioner of Charities to “look into statutory compliance
and evaluate if such religious groups still qualify as
charities.”
“New Creation Church and City Harvest Church are registered
as charities but not Institutions of a Public Character. This means
that donations to these churches are not tax exempt, so donors do
not enjoy tax deductions of 2.5 times. Nevertheless, I am impressed
by the ability of these churches to obtain significant donation
income, which is a feat few organisations can match,” she
added.
Another Singaporean Harvey Neo pointed out the blurring of lines
between a religious group and its associated business entity in
reality:
“For example, the initial start-up funds for the business
entity could come entirely from the church. Tax-exempt funds from
the church might also be diverted to the business entity in
indirect ways.”
He stressed that the problems arises when “the associated
businesses of a religious group balloon to such an extent that one
starts to forget the raison d’etre of religion and begins to wonder
where the profits of such businesses go to.”
City Harvest Church was founded by its Senior Pastor Kong Hee in
1989 as a small Bible study group of 20 and has since ballooned to
a mega Church with more than 33,000 members.