One comment I saw left me a bit perturbed.
The deputy director of the Tax Authority said "... we are going to use our intelligence services to check into their activities... we have hair-raising data in our hands about the expansive salaries being taken by some of the directors of the badatzim."
source: Behadrei
So what? These are businesses. The directors work hard to make their businesses successful and profitable. They don't deserve to earn a high salary? Does the tax authority say such things about bank directors, lawyers, hospital administrators, directors of the electric company, of Bezeq, etc etc etc? Only when the director of a Badatz earns a high salary is it "hair raising data"?
Just like anybody else is entitled to earn a good living for working hard, so Badatz directors are entitled to that just the same..
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In the US, kashrus agencies are officially "not-for-profit" organizations, which get special treatment with regard to taxes. Salaries at not-for-profits are supposed to be in-line with their mission, and not comparable to the public sector. Not-for-profits have gotten their status revoked due to excessive executive salaries.
ReplyDeleteDoes Israel have similar rules? Could that be what's going on here?
No, not all kashrus organizations in the USA are not-for-profit. Some are and some aren't.
DeleteRafi - the Badatzim - or at least many of them - purport to be community service-type organizations, not for-profit business. Think about the Eda - they claim to be the representative of their followers, and using religious requirements as their stick, force those who follow their Rabbanim to use (mostly) only their Hechsher. As such, taking too high a salary for their Hashgacha work would seem to be clearly improper - if a Rav said you can only use supplier X for an Esrog, and it turned out that he had an arrangement with supplier X to only recommend him in exchange for a significant payment, wouldn't you see it as improper?
ReplyDeleteeverybody knows the kashrut division of the eida is a business. the accusation is usually that they use the profits from the kashrut business and funnel the money to their other activities, meaning someone buying eida-supervised food is also supporting eida activities against the state (hafganot, etc)
ReplyDeleteI have never heard of these being described as communal services rather than businesses. maybe in the situation of a local rav giving his personal name to the use of a local eatery (it happens here in rbs a lot with caterers), but not a real kashrut organization
it does make me think of the people who run businesses and name the business "gemach xyz". so customers think the business is really a gemach and not making any money when it really is
ReplyDelete(note: nto to cast aspersions on the many real gemachs out there)
The answer is very simple. The tax authorities engage in PR all the time (cf Bar Rafaeli), and so do the police, the AG, etc. That's all this is - PR.
ReplyDeleteEven if they were not-for-profits, and therefore too high salaries are violations vis-a-vis the Rasham Haamutot, that's not the tax people's issue - au contraire, the higher the salary, the more taxes they collect.