Lula guarantees land tax haven to Churches – 02/29/2024 – Marcos Augusto Gonçalves

The PEC report that expands tax benefits granted by the State to religious institutions was approved by a Chamber committee. The proposal is from the problematic deputy Marcelo Crivella (Republicanos-RJ). The parliamentarian is a licensed bishop of the Universal Church, led by his uncle Edir Macedo, he was Minister of Fisheries, under Dilma Rousseff, and mayor of Rio, removed by the courts at the end of his term.

The preliminary vote had government support. President Lula, among other left-wing luminaries, insists that progressives need to get closer to evangelicals, who tend towards conservatism, if not the ultra-right. Is this the way?

It makes no sense for the State, which is secular and must ensure the good administration of public resources, to sponsor religious entities by granting abusive tax advantages. The current legislation already seems too concessive by Republican standards.

To summarize the news: in addition to the exemption in force for assets, income and services “related to the essential purposes” of religious temples, the PEC ends indirect taxation, for example, on the purchase of cement for works or construction of churches.

According to Crivella, Lula would be willing to promulgate nonsense at Easter, acting like a bunny on a religious holiday.

It is no secret that the creation of churches in Brazil has become a branch of entrepreneurship that involves the search for profit and the formation of business conglomerates. The figure of the bishop or the millionaire pastor with an imported car and mansion – or even aircraft – is well known.

In this very loyal business, the paths of money donated in good faith are not always the most enlightened. It is not necessary to refine your searches to come across, when consulting Google, countless diversions and scams carried out by arrogant priests who exploit popular credulity.

Columnist Hélio Schwartsman, of this Sheetdemonstrated, in a November 2009 report, the ease of entering this market by creating the Heliocentric Church himself and being granted tax exemptions on applications, in addition to gaining the right to special imprisonment in case of conviction.

Yes, it is necessary to recognize meritorious actions and initiatives in favor of communities – but this is the purpose of the social activities of religious people. Incentives should be limited to the philanthropy framework, which also has its problems, and financial movements would need to be monitored.

Another pernicious aspect of this wave of Churches that has grown in recent decades is the interference in politics. The so-called Bible bench, with evangelical hegemony, has notorious theocratic tendencies, in addition to meddling in public affairs with the intention of obtaining material gains for their businesses.

A certain religious moralism, which reached positions of high command like never before in Jair Bolsonaro’s shady administration, believes in the same logic of theocracies like that of Iran: the idea that God’s law or the supposed law of God should preside over management. of society.

In the catechism of terribly religious sectors, men must wear blue, women pink, marriage between people of the same sex is not allowed, homosexuals are sick people who need to be cured and so on, with the whole series of retrograde postulations that weave our new Middle Ages of the future.

That these and other convictions are adopted as principles in the private sphere, with nothing to oppose, is a democratic right, but the republican sphere should not be invaded.

If Lula and the PT consider that getting closer to the evangelical base means supporting this PEC and offering tax havens on earth to the Churches, they do not deserve forgiveness, after all they know very well what they are doing.

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