Religion fits under personal ideology/philosophy. Everyone has one. Yes it should be taxed.
This misses the point of the church tax (this is a subject I was not familiar with until this thread).
The church tax goes to the institutions, in order to support them. Essentially the brick mortar, books, incense, telephone bills … whatever expenses the communities have
as intitutions are paid with this money. It is a substitute for the old medieval system where the local lords, princes and kings once supported the churches (called a
living or
benefice in England).
This following is a portion of the
Wikipedia article, focusing on Germany, in actually the article states the church tax is applied in many European countries.
Germany
About 70% of church revenues come from
church tax. This is about
€8.5 billion (in 2002). Article 137 of the Weimar Constitution of 1919 and article 140 of the German Basic Law of 1949 are the legal basis for this practice.
In Germany, on the basis of tax regulations passed by the communities and within the limits set by state laws, communities may either
- require the taxation authorities of the state to collect the fees from the members on the basis of income tax assessment (then, the authorities withhold a collection fee), or
- choose to collect the church tax themselves.
In the first case, membership in the community is entered onto a tax document (
Lohnsteuerkarte) which employees must surrender to their employers for the purpose of
withholding tax on paid income. If membership in a tax-collecting religious community is entered on the document, the employer must withhold church tax prepayments from the income of the employee in addition to other tax prepayments. In connection with the final annual income tax assessment, the state revenue authorities also finally assess the church tax owed. In the case of self-employed persons or of unemployed taxpayers, state revenue authorities collect prepayments on the church tax together with prepayments on the income tax.
If, however, religious communities choose to collect church tax themselves, they may demand that the tax authorities reveal taxation data of their members to calculate the contributions and prepayments owed. In particular, some smaller communities (e.g. the Jewish Community of
Berlin) choose to collect taxes themselves to save collection fees the government would charge otherwise.
Collection of church tax may be used to cover any church-related expenses such as founding institutions and foundations or paying ministers.
The church tax is only paid by members of the respective church. People who are not members of a church tax-collecting denomination do not have to pay it. Members of a religious community under public law may formally declare their wish to leave the community to state (not religious) authorities. With such a declaration, the obligation to pay church taxes ends. Some communities refuse to administer marriages and burials of (former) members who had declared to leave it.
This is a service provided by the state, in a sense voluntary, which started long before we had such banking marvels as Direct Deposit and Automated Withdrawal to support our favorite causes. As it stands the rates are not up to traditional tithing (10%), but that might be the idea.
Obviously, if atheists have no public institutions requiring support, there will be no such tax, and if they did have such an institution (and the group qualified for the government program) they would still have the right to opt out and collect their support from members directly.
what is that 7% ???
