Living needs

Re: It’s a free will offering 

Something like $300 a week would meet most faifeau “living needs”, not $2000 like some faifeau in some congregations get. Others get the latest model SUVs presented to them. It’s excessive and quite obscene given the living standards of many of the people featured in “village voice” every week. 

These are the types of people who typically attend the rural churches and a lot of their small amounts of money goes directly to their faifeau.

It is for this reason that it should be taxed. A “gift” is usually rare, a one-off event, like a Christmas present, a birthday gift, a wedding. Something that doesn’t come around very often. 

That is a “gift”. If the giver is giving this “gift” every week, then it ceases to become a “gift” but it becomes “income”. Regardless of the intentions of the giver, once it is received every week by the faifeau, it becomes “income”. 

There is no “employment contract” (well, there is, it is called the “feagaiga” between the faifeau and his parish/congregation), but the faifeau is, for all intents and purposes, an employee of that congregation. In the EFKS, the employers are the congregation who have the power to hire and fire.

 

Petelo Suaniu 

Samoa Observer

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