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Speaker 1: Now the government is looking to text charities more at

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Speaker 1: this year's budget, and we'll have Nichola Willis on the

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Speaker 1: show after six talk about that. But after more than

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Speaker 1: a decade of research and charity law, a Wakato law

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Speaker 1: professor has changed her mind on this very important issue.

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Speaker 1: Associate Professor Juliet Chevellier Watts is with me this afternoon.

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Speaker 2: Good afternoon, Hello Ryan, Thank you so much for having me.

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Speaker 1: Good to have you on. Now you changed your mind.

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Speaker 1: You used to say text them and now you say

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Speaker 1: don't text them. What's changed?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, so many years of research and suddenly discovering actually

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Speaker 2: how much religious charities and churches are worth economically to

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Speaker 2: our society, to New Zealand. It was it blew my

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Speaker 2: mind way to be honest, and quite often the reason

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Speaker 2: we don't know about all of this amazing work that

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Speaker 2: they carry out is because they hidelir lights under a bushel. Unfortunately,

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Speaker 2: they don't give themselves any many faiths doing that, and

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Speaker 2: all of their good much of their good work, is

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Speaker 2: hidden away. So my research has shown has brought to

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Speaker 2: light so much of this amazing work and the economic

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Speaker 2: relevance of it to New Zealand. So from a tax

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Speaker 2: payer perspective.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, so I want to ask you about this because

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Speaker 1: you have said that that contributed an enormous six point

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Speaker 1: one billion dollars to our economy in a single year.

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Speaker 1: What you've said it rightly, So it's bigger than some industries.

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Speaker 1: How you calculated that? Like, how are they actually doing that?

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Speaker 2: Right? So this takes into consideration, It only takes into

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Speaker 2: a consideration a small amount of what they do, but

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Speaker 2: this is basically their total value of services. So but

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Speaker 2: what that doesn't do is it doesn't include indirect impacts

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Speaker 2: such as the stuff they have to do with tax compliance,

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Speaker 2: the charity law compliance, improved health, et cetera, that you

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Speaker 2: get from being a religious entity. So yeah, we've really

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Speaker 2: only just scraped the surface on this research, to be honest.

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Speaker 1: So how I mean, how are they six billions a

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Speaker 1: lot of money?

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Speaker 2: How is that?

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Speaker 1: And help? What is that?

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Speaker 2: So this is my work that I carry out with

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Speaker 2: a research colleague by the name of Professor Frank Scrimjaw

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Speaker 2: who's at the Wheata Management School. So he specializes an

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Speaker 2: accountancy and tax and he has gone through so we've

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Speaker 2: taken data from the charity services website. So all charities

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Speaker 2: provide data, as it were, to the publicly available in

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Speaker 2: charity services register being registered as a charity, and we

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Speaker 2: can and anybody can obtain that data, but it takes

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Speaker 2: a lot of time and energy to go through it.

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Speaker 2: So it will include things like how many volunteers they have,

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Speaker 2: what income they've got, what outgoings they've got, all of

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Speaker 2: those sorts of things that they're expenses. So we have

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Speaker 2: looked at all of that data from twenty eighteen, and

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Speaker 2: we've still got to do post COVID work yet, or.

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Speaker 1: I guess for people to understand. So are you saying

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Speaker 1: that they are doing six billion dollars worth of good?

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Speaker 2: Is that? Yes, that's pretty much what it boils down to. Yeah,

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Speaker 2: six point one billion New Zealand dollars of good for

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Speaker 2: the community. That was just in twenty eighteen.

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Speaker 1: Right, interesting, And so therefore we shouldn't text them because

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Speaker 1: they're doing more good, far more good than ham So

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Speaker 1: let's help them rather than hinder them.

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Speaker 2: Well, to be honest, you've hit the nail on the

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Speaker 2: head there, to be honest, Ryan, because I think what

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Speaker 2: people are not really aware of is what it actually

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Speaker 2: takes to be a charity. So it's not just a

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Speaker 2: handout that churches or religious entities or any charity gets

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Speaker 2: for tax exemptions. This is to recognize the amazing good

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Speaker 2: works that they do and to recognize all the billions

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Speaker 2: of dollars that they contribute to suity that the government

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Speaker 2: then doesn't have to fork out for saving tax money.

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Speaker 2: So yes, my views are is that actually the prospect

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Speaker 2: of income tax or additional taxes on charities is a

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Speaker 2: really horrifying thing because we don't yet know exactly how much,

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Speaker 2: in addition to what we've really uncovered, how much an

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Speaker 2: addition they are worth to society. So say additional taxes

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Speaker 2: were imposed on them, well, they would then have to

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Speaker 2: remove so much of their money to pay tax and

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Speaker 2: instead of focusing on the good work that they do.

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Speaker 1: Okay, interesting take. Dr Juliet Chevellia Watts. We appreciate you

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Speaker 1: coming on the program today. Thank you very much for that.

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Speaker 1: Associate professor, our law expert at Wakata University says she's

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Speaker 1: looked into it and reckons they shouldn't be paying tax.

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Speaker 1: What do you reckon? Nine to two nine two, it's

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Speaker 1: quarter past four. I mean six billion dollars is a

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Speaker 1: lot of money. I think our mining sector at the

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Speaker 1: moment makes less than two billion dollars a year. So

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Speaker 1: if that is true that they do six billion dollars worth,

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Speaker 1: I mean, there's no doubt it is. It is slightly

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Speaker 1: disconcerting when we have a debate about charities and tax

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Speaker 1: in New Zealand right in the midst of the Destiny

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Speaker 1: Church thing, because everybody gets so wound up about one

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Speaker 1: particular group when you've got to look at it as

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Speaker 1: a you know, as a wider issue. Surely. For more

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Speaker 1: from Heather Duplessy Allen Drive, listen live to news Talks.

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