With the way they operate, can the rest of the world be far behind? From the WUWT tips and notes we have this news.
Will and also John from New Zealand say:
Greenpeace in New Zealand have just lost their court appeal to retain their charitable tax status. It seems that legally they’re now viewed as a political lobby group:
http://business.scoop.co.nz/2011/05/09/greenpeace-too-political-to-register-as-charity-nz-court/
Greenpeace too political to register as charity, NZ court rules
By Paul McBeth
May 9 (BusinessDesk) – Environmental lobbyist Greenpeace of New Zealand Inc. is too involved in political causes to register as a charity, the High Court has ruled.
Justice Paul Heath turned down an appeal last Friday that Greenpeace could register with the Charities Commission after the body rejected its 2010 application.
Justice Heath said Greenpeace’s political activities can’t be regarded as “merely ancillary” to its charitable purposes and that the commission was correct in disqualifying it for registration over the potentially illegal activities.
Sorry for the brevity… “Woot!”
Can’t they re-apply under the tax exemption for religious organizations instead 😉 ??
Well Sh*t-howdy!
That’s because we know who you are, and where you have been. We will not be paying you to do it again! Charity starts at home not on the high seas, Arggghhhhh me hardies.
In France, we say :
Champagne !…
Who’ll be next? WWF, Sierra Club, or?
Not before time.
Come back French frogmen – all is forgiven…..
Yes! You have no idea how proud I am of my country right now. Maybe the pendulum is starting to swing.
As Greenpeace were recently involved in disrupting a legitimate marine seismic survey in the North Island, this decision is to be applauded.
About bl**dy time!
Wonderful news. Thank you New Zealand Court of Appeal!
Couldn’t have happened to a nastier, more malign, and pernicious organization.
“It doesn’t matter what is true, it only matters what people believe is true.”
– Paul Watson,
co-founder of Greenpeace
Proud to be a kiwi.
If only the UK would follow. There is a long list of organisations that should be regarded as political and not charitable:
Greenpeace
WWF
Friends of the Earth
etc
etc
Next in the firing libe, human rights groups!
Mailman
Surprising because the wreck was a tourist attaction when last visited; anyhow goodoh stuff. Next job is to stop employing them as advisors and paying them big salaries. They’re really very big in the EU alas.
Now let the rest of the World judge the efforts of this group. There is no way they can be called a ‘charity’!
Sad. New Zealand could have been saved.
sarc
In the UK we have a plethora of fake charities which receive large sums of money from the Government to enable them to lobby the Government. These incestuous circles are used by the Government as “public consultation exercises”, enabling the Government to claim support for policies, support which, in reality, does not exist.
http://fakecharities.org/
Congratulations to NZ for recognising Greenpeace for what it is – a rather nasty political body.
Steeptown says: Now the rest.
May 10, 2011 at 12:10 am
Amen to that
Greenpeace as in give us your “green, please”!
Ironically this could improve their financial position. Although they will no longer be a tax exempt charity, donations and legacies received (episodically) from members of the public don’t count as taxable income, whereas those donations then paid out for “trading” activities is tax deductible!
I was always amused by the story that one of the original founder members of Green Peace left when the ruling ‘commiteee’ attempted to initiate a campaign for a global ban on Chlorine. ‘I tried to explain to them that Chlorine was in fact an Element and you can’t go around trying to ban Elements.’ He said. Then to his credit he resigned!
The other thing that has always struck me about GP is the incredibly clever name which takes the semantic high ground in an instant…how could any ‘sane, rational person’ be opposed to an organization called GREEN PEACE? Becase given the way language works they’d have to be in favour of…BROWN WAR and who would nail their colours to that mast?!
I once talked with someone who got quite ‘high up’ in the organization and this person described an intensely rigid, doctrinaire and controlling hierarchy. The way they described it made me think of a Medieval Monastic set up!
The day they get back to doing what they were founded to do, namely fight specific battles to protect specific bits of the eco system or environment; they will have my tacit support because there’s always some destructive asshole who thinks they can make a few extra dollars by wrecking some piece of the world and I’m against them, I’ll bet most of you are too.
The CO2/Global Warming Project was a natural corollary from the Globalization frenzy that gripped the world at the end of the 20th Century, and that Globalization was in turn the bastard son of the Cold War.
I think the science is settled. We have nothing to fear from PPM of CO2, but to see a quasi-religious phenomenon like AGW concretize like a tumour in the body politic…now that scares me.
Well Done NZ Courts.
About time. Good on New Zealand for leading the way!
Congratulations New Zealand!
Let this be a warming to other environmental groups who overplay their activist hand.
Greenpeace Visa card Only 18.9% APR
Since the annual world-wide budget of Greenpeace is in the region of $US600 million, much of it contributed by various governments, I don’t think this will hurt them too much. But an important principle has been enunciated that should remove the righteous glaze from some of their members’ eyes.
Larry’s comment: It’s about bloody time. An organization that makes we-know-where-you-live violent threats against an entire class of people with whom it disagrees does not deserve charitable status.
Well done, Kiwis! A Brit looks on, feeling considerable envy.
Fiends of the Earth & World Wildlies Fund next please!
DaveE.
we can all breathe now
Ooooo’ that sinking feeling
I don’t often punch the air. The way NZ is changing, there may yet be somewhere to emigrate to from the UK.
It is a welcome start, but I wonder how long it will be before these people haters will be recognised as “Hostes humani generis” ie the common enemies of human kind: a term formerly applied to pirates?
Let us all hope that Oz can soon shed her green shackles soon, too.
TimC says:
May 10, 2011 at 1:08 am
I do not think you are correct. I receive regular ‘donations’ from my customers, but I think the tax man would not allow me to consider these as non-taxable! They would be in exactly the same position.
At last, NZ makes a sensible “green” decision. Go Kiwi! Proud of the homeland.
Everywhere one looks, the warmist castle is beginning to crumble. It’ll take a while before we can all dance (or worse) on its grave, but that day is coming.
The wave of popular support and general fuzzy good vibes about supposedly ‘cuddly’ organisations like GP, WWF, 10:10 is rapidly being replaced by well-founded cynicism and mistrust.
Even in UK, sanity is beginning to burst out in high places.
Our Cabinet is split about the need to actually implement the previous government’s disastrous Climate Change Act..or just to let it wither away..forgotten, unloved, unwanted and useless.
An artefact of those heady days before Copenhagen, Climategate and Cancun when the warmist troops thought that they were in sight of the Promised Land.
How sad that like all their ideas, even that was an illusion too. A mirage made up of wishful thinking, the heady scent of power and the dodgy divinations of Climatology.
Protect forests to have a weather and climate in the clean!
ALL these environmental groups are political lobby groups. They all con people into giving money to enable them to change government policy to their thinking. Let them start to pay for the damage they create dreaming up lies about the environment and CAGW.
Not too fast, apparently they are appealing to the Supreme Court, the highest court in the land. They make some strange decisions and are blinded by ‘good causes’ and do gooders.
Personally, I hope they fail, I am sick of those tossers telling me how to live my life.
Since the annual world-wide budget of Greenpeace is in the region of $US600 million, much of it contributed by various governments, I don’t think this will hurt them too much.
It would be terrible for them if similar decisions were made around the world. That’s why they fought it.
Firstly donations are not tax free, so their income will be dramatically reduced. (Let’s be clear here, it will be the donor paying the tax, but tax will still be paid.)
Secondly certain benefits accrue to charities. If, for example, a group gives money to “charity” (say the Lotto organisation in NZ) then Greenpeace will no longer be eligible. They may require greater auditing too.
Most importantly, I suspect, is the loss of face and prestige. Once they are routinely seen as a political organisation first and foremost, they will suffer all the downsides of that.
And about B****y time. In Australia the likes of Australian Conservation Foundation, Greenpeace, National Parks Associations, Friends of the Earth, Wilderness Society, The Climate Institute, etc. have long claimed to be charity organisations. They should be seen for what they are, politically motivated environmental activist groups.
Congratulations to N.Z. for one small step in the right direction.
BRAVO Kiwis
This is excellent. I’ve been demanding the end of charitable status for Greenpeace, SIerra Club et al for some time.
I think more and more that its in court that the whole MMGW industry has to be exposed. Its the only arena that has the tools to stop the constant switching of subjects and refusal to answer the question asked.
Every time something goes to court like this they lose. I think there needs to be a fund (or charity if you will) that can start challenging these scoundrels.
Can’t wait until someone gets to the core of this junk in a court and cross examines the East Anglia crowd or the Hockey team on their shennanigans.
Allan M says:
May 10, 2011 at 2:04 am
I don’t often punch the air. The way NZ is changing, there may yet be somewhere to emigrate to from the UK.
Want to share a cab?
Well done, Kiwis!
Cathy says:
May 10, 2011 at 12:05 am
Couldn’t have happened to a nastier, more malign, and pernicious organization.
“It doesn’t matter what is true, it only matters what people believe is true.”
– Paul Watson,
co-founder of Greenpeace
Was it not one Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov (you know, the guy who effectively signed the death warrants of hundreds of thousands of people, just because they disagreed with his point of view & he knew best) who said “if you tell a lie often enough it becomes the truth”?
Surprisingly sane decision.
Thanks to all for the really great comments in this thread. This is an excellent precedent that will not go unnoticed by the judiciary in other countries.
Folks are starting to understand the scam of leveraging government contributions to NGOs / QUANGOS – funds which are then used to pry ever more public tax money from a population that would object to the misuse of their funds – if only they had a say in the matter. The NZ court has taken decisive action to protect the average taxpaying citizen, who is powerless on his own when confronted by an organization with $.6 billion in annual discretionary revenues. That much money buys politicians by the boatload.
There is no excuse for giving tax-exempt status to Greenpeace, the WWF, and similar political organizations. Those organizations have learned to game the system to the detriment of already hard-bitten taxpayers. The sooner their undeserved tax-exempt status is revoked in other countries, the better. This is a great start, and the NZ court’s decision is to be applauded.
Thank you New Zealand.
@ Jerome: thanks. While probably a bit OT, to answer your point shortly the URL below gives a link to the UK HMRC Inspectors’ manual which deals with this.
Every tax jurisdiction is different and I can only speak for the UK, but I think Kiwi law is probably similar. What is critical is that the donations are truly voluntary and episodic – no legal commitment or guarantee of payment, no consideration for the “donation” (I see you used quotes – I wonder why! ), no regularity (none arrive for ages then 3 come along at once like London buses) – but that is how true voluntary donations (no quotes!) play out. There are several other issues and you need good tax advice, but I have seen HMRC accept this, fully disclosed.
URL: http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/manuals/bimmanual/BIM41810.htm
Greenpeace have become a dangerous force driven by extreme socialist ideology, similar to the Sierra Club, The WWF and other so-called’environmental’ organisations. I am proud of my country and its judiciary for this wonderful and principled move. There are four-and-a-bit million of us Kiwis on a land mass alightly bigger than the UK and Greenpeace has been a severe irritant to too many of us with their silly scare stories and the mental poison they feed our kids.
Latimer Alder says:
May 10, 2011 at 2:32 am
Everywhere one looks, the warmist castle is beginning to crumble.
You may be right. In the Yahoo news on Jim Hansen helping teens to sue the Federal Government over inaction on Climate Change, the top ranked comments are very telling. http://news.yahoo.com/s/livescience/20110510/sc_livescience/nasascientisthelpsteenssuegovernmentoverclimatechange
Not that most comments on Yahoo aren’t a complete waste of time to read, but their new sort by approval rating has managed to get some of the better ones to the top.
Well there ya go. Kiwi’s are good fer somethin’……;-)
Now let’s hope that GreenFleece goes broke.
How do we make this happen in the US?
It is so biased. No wonder they are losing the status.
Irony? That’s where the Rainbow Warrior got hit, you’d perhaps expect New Zealand might be more sympathetic towards them. Maybe the French will be next.
Alan, it was not Lenin who said that, but Joseph Goebbels, Minister of Propaganda of Nazi Germany.
However, all three, Lenin, Goebbels and Watson share the same mind-set.
The fact they cooked up false, non-peer-reviewed material on climate change along with WWF and others that their pals in ipcc simply added to their ARs instance enough, let alone GP’s threats (We know where you live … You be few and we be many..) to prominent sceptics, to shut the door on these goons. I would like to see a post recalling all the green organizations’ sins – it might serve as a resource for the plaintiff in the final SCNZ hearing and for other courts around the world. Or simply as a package to send to politicians.
Sorry for the multiple posts. My posts seemed to disappear and I thought they got lost in the spam filter.
Greenpeace lost its charitable status in Canada in 1999.
Now if they would only look at some churches in the same light.
“Latimer Alder says:
May 10, 2011 at 2:32 am
Even in UK, sanity is beginning to burst out in high places.
Our Cabinet is split about the need to actually implement the previous government’s disastrous Climate Change Act..or just to let it wither away..forgotten, unloved, unwanted and useless. ”
The Climate Change Act must be repealed or amended to reduce those ridiculous targets (preferably to nothing) because there is now a huge number of climate change officers in local councils all spouting the mantra and writing it into every sort of local council policy document, even those that seem to have nothing whatsoever to do with climate change. Councils have partnership agreements with other organisations who have bought into the climate change meme and take the council’s policy and expand on it still further. It is insidious throughout local government and any other organisation it touches, and vice versa. Even if the democratic part of local government is none too keen on the climate change mantra, because the diktat has come down from government, officers have bought into it with complete abandonment. Earth Week was extensively pushed on councils’ websites and through schools.
The Climate Change Act will not just wither and die while there are so many vested interests.
But, good old NZ. Looking forward to my trip there later on this year to see the cousins.
My American Thinker article from last July described how Greenpeace USA circa 2000 was part of the original effort to portray skeptic scientists as corrupted by fossil fuel money, see “Smearing Global Warming Skeptics” http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/07/smearing_global_warming_skepti.html
Imagine how much of this political lobbying is now part of their worldwide efforts.
Hip Hip HURRAH !!!!!!!!!!!
Welcome aboard New Zealand. In 1989 no less a green haven than Canada dealt the Dutch-based environmentalist group a massive blow to its credibility and fundraising efforts by denying it the charitable status it had sought for a decade. Revenue Canada, the tax-collecting arm of the government, refused to recognize the new Greenpeace Environmental Foundation as a charity, saying its activities have “no public benefit” and that lobbying to shut down industries could send people “into poverty.”
Charles says “I once talked with someone who got quite ‘high up’ in the organization and this person described an intensely rigid, doctrinaire and controlling hierarchy. The way they described it made me think of a Medieval Monastic set up!”
A better description is “cult”. It would be best if GP, WWF, etc were declared churches of the Green religion. Then goverments could not fund them and schools could not indoctrinate their beliefs to students.
I thought religions could achieve charitable status.
Greenpeace is a terrorist organization and should be treated like one.
The next thing they need to do in Australia is kinda the opposite:
Declare that nutball PM they’ve got as an environmental charity and revoke her status as a political entity.
Just a thought.
Frankly, I’d love to see an Amendment to our Constitution that banned all Governmentg funding for NGOs. All NGOs. It’s just too damn open to abuse.
I didn’t know GP was a charity! WTF!!
Why are these so called “charities” amassing major amounts of profits anyway?
A reasonable answer would be to say they do not spend their funds on what they campaign for. What are they campaigning for? it’s the money!!
These charities are businesses pushing a political agenda, they bypass our democratic processes and undermining our liberties by abusing the kind nature of people.
Jer0me says:
May 10, 2011 at 2:20 am
I do not think you are correct. I receive regular ‘donations’ from my customers, but I think the tax man would not allow me to consider these as non-taxable! They would be in exactly the same position.
Not entirely true. In a normal transaction, goods or services are received in exchange for the money donated. The ruling says that essentially, Greenpeace is a lobbying firm. Which may be true given their tactics. This means that they are not receiving ‘donations’, but they are receiving lobbying fees. The things they subsequently do are their lobbying services. I can see how this applies to them. Now if Greenpeace put their money where their mouth is and cleaned up toxic messes, tested water flows, and such things, I would say that they are providing valuable charitable services. Hassling whaling boats is not exactly charitable.
Sparks,
Charities do not mass profits. They have unreliable revenue streams. There is nothing wrong with a charity trying to provide a consistent mission by maintaining a fund balance that they can use to stave off a couple of bad years. If non-mission expenses increase, especially administrative expenses, then there may be a problem in the way the charity is run.
As to ‘the kind nature of people’, I would say that that nature is shown best in donations made to charities that actually help people. Still, if GPeace were to do what I said in my previous post and travel a country cleaning up toxic areas, how would they keep the area from becoming toxic again if they were not allowed to lobby?
The Free World=1 , Communism=0
Next round please!
David Falkner says:
May 10, 2011 at 11:39 pm
“Charities do not mass profits”
Is that a fact? I have access to the internet (how many examples would you like me to quote?). It doesn’t matter what or how-much-profits charities amass I’m sure an excuse can be constructed that will allow for massive profits amassed by modern charities.
David Falkner
I know you mean well.
Well done New Zealand, I hope their example goes Worldwide!!
David Falkner says:
Charities do not mass profits
Sparks says:
“Is that a fact? I have access to the internet (how many examples would you like me to quote?). It doesn’t matter what or how-much-profits charities amass I’m sure an excuse can be constructed that will allow for massive profits amassed by modern charities.”
While I can’t speak to the laws of other countries, I’ve been involved with a number of charities in the US. Under 501(c)(3) – the most common (and desirable) non-profit designation, the term “non-profit” (as well as “charity”) does NOT refer to whether the organization makes a profit or not. Rather, it refers to the PURPOSE of the organization. Certain PURPOSES qualify an organization as non-profit or non-profit charity. ALMOST any otherwise legal activity is permitted, including owning and/or operating businesses in an otherwise for-profit manner (such as a bookstore). Generally, political activity is NOT permitted – especially lobbying.
A well-run charitable organization not only does but SHOULD amass profits. And no “excuse” is required.
Charities do not make profits. They only carry unexpended funds. They should carry extra funds because donations are highly sensitive to a wide range of factors. It is not like running a business where if you are making a good product, people will buy it.
David Falkner says:
Charities do not make profits. They only carry unexpended funds. They should carry extra funds because donations are highly sensitive to a wide range of factors. It is not like running a business where if you are making a good product, people will buy it.
Based on my past experience as a regional director for a 501(c)(3) non-profit, (operating under U.S. law) I would have to characterize that statement as incorrect. Donations are not the only source of revenue. And it WAS like running a business (in fact, a non-profit IS a business). We provided a service, and people paid for it, just like any for-profit business. The operating definition that allowed us to be a 501(c)(3) was our purpose, not our bottom line.
David:
I’ll concede that this disagreement may be a quibble about the specific definition of profit. What I see as profits, perhaps you don’t.
I was a member back in the early seventies. I held such high hopes for the organisation and its ideals back then.
“If you can bear to hear the truths you’ve spoken, twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools”
Here in Hong Kong Greenpeace is pounding the streets to drum up support for the elimination of nuclear power. @23%, almost a quarter of the city’s electricity is derived from nuclear power. They offer no solutions. Do they expect the MTR ( underground rail system) to be pulled by pit ponies?
As a kiwi I am also very pleased to see common sense prevail with this decision, although a lot more is needed in the country’s politics and economy.
Jerome;
the difference is that donors to Greenpeace get nothing in return. Except a boost in self-righteousness.
Theoretical question: is that an “economic good”? I guess it must be, by definition, since people pay for it!
TonyG:
I would say that using the term profit when you refer to not-for-profit organizations seems a little redundant. In practice, they are the same thing, though. Except that a NFP doesn’t try to maximize left over funds, or at least shouldn’t. If they were to try that, they would be a pointless agency to have. That is my quibble about the term profit. 🙂
How did the Kiwi find the sheep in the tall grass?
Irresistable!
Yay – I love NZ.
Robin
David Falkner says:
I would say that using the term profit when you refer to not-for-profit organizations seems a little redundant. In practice, they are the same thing, though. Except that a NFP doesn’t try to maximize left over funds, or at least shouldn’t. If they were to try that, they would be a pointless agency to have. That is my quibble about the term profit. 🙂
Fair enough, regarding the reasoning and definitions. However, your understanding is not an accurate understanding of how non-profits necessarily work, and how they are defined. It is also a VERY common misconception by people not involved with management of non-profits (including many volunteers and employees) For a good primer on the basics, I would suggest reading through the introductory chapters of the Nolo Press Non-Profit Corporation book (not the exact title) that explains how you can have an organization determined to be a non-profit. They focus on 501(c)(3) but mention some of the others – 501(c)(3) is the only US code that allows ‘charity’ status, and is defined purely by the purpose of the organization.
Great news!! Greenpeace is always a political interest group disguised as charity group. They deserve such a verdict. I look forward to seeing their branches around the globe getting the same verdict.
Just as I have been installing a small woodburning stove in my modest home, this news comes as such a welcome encouragement.
another thing – I still have my old Greenpeace badge. What started with good intent but then hitched a lift with the bad boys and forgot what their founder members had in their souls.
TonyG
Hi, I’m just wondering, How can a charity amass 6-million per year through donations and other assorted practices from one small country, with no observable benefit to the public?
((At what point does the “charity” part come into it?))
Sparks says:
TonyG
Hi, I’m just wondering, How can a charity amass 6-million per year through donations and other assorted practices from one small country, with no observable benefit to the public?
A charity/non-profit certainly CAN “amass 6-million per year”, but one would expect it to be engaged in its charitable purpose. If it is not engaged in that purpose, then it may no longer qualify, and can have the status pulled. I can’t really offer much of an answer without details.
However, if you are referring to Greenpeace, then I think this article answers that question.