Australia's not-for-profit sector sports over 600,000 organisations. These organisations are exempt from paying tax and the public knows very little about the majority of them.

In fact, due to secrecy provisions contained within the Taxation Administration Act, the ATO is not allowed to release any information on individual organisations, even just to tell the public which organisations are operating as Authorised Research Institutes (like the IPA).

Unfortunately we are unable to provide a list of organisations that are endorsed as Deductible Gift Recipients (DGRs) by the ATO under the Approved Research Institution (ARI) category. The reason for this is that unless a specific exception applies, taxation officers are prohibited from disclosing information about the affairs of organisations that is not publicly available (see Division 355 of Schedule 1 of the Tax Administration Act 1953).
Charities that are registered with the ACNC and are endorsed by the ATO as income tax exempt do not have an obligation to report for income tax purposes. A charity that is income tax exempt is still required to: be registered for goods and services tax (GST) if their GST turnover is $150,000 or more; withhold pay as you go withholding tax on behalf of their employees; and pay fringe benefits tax to the extent to which they are not eligible for certain fringe benefits tax concessions (ATO spoksperson).

In 2013 the charities regulator was established with the intent to improve transparency in the not-for-profit sector, focusing on charities, but with the legislative authority to govern the entire sector. Of the 600,000 not-for-profits, only the 50-60 thousand of these that are registered charities are required to report their finances annually for online publication by the Australian Charities and Not-for-Profit Commission.

Of these 50+ thousand charities, over 14,000 are religious charities but a loop-hole introduced to the ACNC legislation at the behest of the religious lobby means that over half of these religious charties are excused from reporting financially to either the ATO or the ACNC.

In 2017 over 8,000 charities self-assessed themselves as Basic Religious Charities which means we know very little about their finances.

If a charity self-reports as a Basic Religious Charity, it does not have to:

• answer the financial information questions in the ACNC Annual Information Statement regardless of its size;
• submit annual financial reports to the ACNC (even if it is a medium or large charity); or
• comply with ACNC Governance Standards.

Chief among the reasons put forward for why religious charities should not have to report financially to the charities regulator (as do all secular charities) is that religious organisations are often small, unincorporated organisations suriving on the contributions of their membership.

Contrary to the picture painted by the organisations who lobbied for these exemptions, there are large charities (with a revenue of over $1 million annually) who are self assessed as Basic Religious Charities and who are managing significant amounts of money.

At least one of these charitable investment funds is a Basic Religious Charity, which means that despite managing 'approximately $100m', the organisation is not required to report their finances to the charities regulator.

The Corporation Of The Synod Of The Diocese Of Brisbane is a Basic Religious Charity which means it does not have to report finances to the ACNC. Since Jan 2018 it has received 61 grants from the Commonwealth government alone. This does not include grants from other state or local governments or tenders from all three levels of government.