December 20, 2019

Berlin is taking charitable status away from charities

topic:	Democracy
located:	Germany
editor:	Gurmeet Singh

Berlin’s tax office is not feeling the Christmas spirit. At a time of year when it should be bursting its bedroom windows open and calling out “you there boy, what day is it?”, it’s instead decided to play pre-visitation Scrooge, counting pennies, muttering “bah humbug”. Having taken the charitable status away from several organisations in the city, it now threatens Change.org. with the same.

“This is an attack on civil society”, says Change.org’s press release about the subject. And indeed, it is. Changing the charitable status of groups diminishes their ability to act, with tax rates for businesses being anything between 14 - 35 per cent. For a non-profit organisation like Change.org, this would significantly limit its ability to offer ordinary people leverage over politicians and political debates. Effectively, it would mean staff would have to be laid off, and voluntary and low-paid interns hired.

The release says “If the tax office really makes its threat come true and deprives us of its non-profit status, this could unsettle our donors and endanger our financial foundation. Thanks to over 15,500 sponsors and many individual donors, we can support citizens in initiating changes - be it local concerns such as the rescue of inner-city children's farms, or changes in the law such as making illegal filming under women's skirts punishable. Financial support for active “participatory democracy” is tax-deductible thanks to its non-profit status. The reason given for the revocation is that the tax office stated that the petition starters on Change.org predominantly pursue political or even individual interests. Examples include Marianne Grimmenstein's campaigns to file a civil complaint against CETA or the petition by Gabi Müller, mother of a Loveparade victim, demanding that the Loveparade disaster be investigated under criminal law.”

Change.org attempts to promote democratic participation by allowing citizens to influence political debate and discussion. It also offers citizens a trusted and efficient way of organising petitions against unjust laws or unfair proposals. In 2018, there were “12,027 petitions, 21,128,264 signatures and 6,002,997 registered users in Germany.” This shows a high level of public participation on the platform; more than many other NGOs and charities can boast.

Part of the tax office’s reason for targeting Change.org this way is the fact that it is not an exclusively “German” association. Rather, by operating globally, the German branch of change.org does not operate alone. Firstly, this ignores the international and globalised nature of politics (for example, the refugee crisis is not solely a “German” problem, but of global significance). Secondly, the German office is highly “German”. It offers a German language website, with German speaking staff and adheres to German law. It simply uses the global version of Change.org, as this saves money on creating an entirely new petition site.

Germany has to decide if it wants to punish organisations like Change.org, which promote democratic inclusion, and at the same time continue to allow special interest lobbyists to have influence over our politics. Ho Ho Ho, Merry Christmas Democracy!

Image: Sri Harsha Gera/Pixabay