Church taxes in europe

  • Thread starter Thread starter Monica02
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
M

Monica02

Guest
I do not know where to post this but I thought this would be a good place as it affects Church attendance.

Someone told me that Austria has a 1% Church tax that results in excommunication if a person opts out of paying. I did a little searching and found that Germany has a similar system. I could not make heads or tails out of what I read so I am asking for any (name removed by moderator)ut from people who might be in the know. What is the deal withthese taxes and excommunication?
 
I thought taxes were against Church teaching. I’m pretty sure you should give money but it’s not a requirement. Some families are really struggling and a few dollars is all they can do. Other families can easily donate 10% or more of their income. It depends.
 
we as a church do not put a tax you give what you wish no one forces you 10% is only found in the old testament we as christians follow the new testament and we use the old as a guide only protestants have the 10 % notice how many protestant churches start out at a shopping center then couple months they have a whole new church
 
Actually, I remember reading that Germany used to have a church tax. The money could be went either to the Protestant (there was really only one kind of Protestant church in Germany, and it had a hierarchy) or Catholic churches depending on your religious registration. This was the case in both the East and West. I have no idea if it still exists.
 
As far as I know, the clergy in Bavaria receive their saleries from the State and Catholic schools receive the same money as do the public schools…all of which is paid from taxes.
This system has been in effect for almost 200 + years.
By the way, Germany has, in their constitution, a separation of church and state law similar to that of the US Constitution. S
In the State of Bavaria, which is about 90+% Roman Catholic, you will find crucifixes on the walls of almost every public space.
Several years ago, an atheist sued the State of Bavaria in the German Supreme Court to make them remove crucifixes from public school classrooms, courtrooms, offices, and other walls of public places. The German Supreme Court decided against Bavaria and told them to get rid of the crucifixes. The President of the State of Bavaria told the German Supreme Court that if they wanted to take the crucifixes down, they would have to come to Bavaria and do it themselves. He also told them, that personally he did not think that it would be a safe thing to do. The crucifixes are still up !
 
George_Stegmeir said:
By the way, Germany has, in their constitution, a separation of church and state law similar to that of the US Constitution.
Click to expand...
But I remember reading about how there were church taxes in the 70s. Have they made recent changes to the Basic Law?
George_Stegmeir said:
The President of the State of Bavaria told the German Supreme Court that if they wanted to take the crucifixes down, they would have to come to Bavaria and do it themselves. He also told them, that personally he did not think that it would be a safe thing to do. The crucifixes are still up !
Click to expand...
👍

I believe a similar thing happened in Italy. The European Court of Human Rights ordered Italian schools to remove crucifixes because it “offended” a non-Italian atheist from one of the low countries. (Can you believe it? The person wasn’t even an Italian, yet the need was felt to force beliefs - or rather non-beliefs - on foreigners!) Needless to say, local government officials told the ECHR to send in their army to do the job themselves. Luckily, none exists.
 
George_Stegmeir said:
As far as I know, the clergy in Bavaria receive their saleries from the State and Catholic schools receive the same money as do the public schools…all of which is paid from taxes.
This system has been in effect for almost 200 + years.
By the way, Germany has, in their constitution, a separation of church and state law similar to that of the US Constitution. S
In the State of Bavaria, which is about 90+% Roman Catholic, you will find crucifixes on the walls of almost every public space.
Several years ago, an atheist sued the State of Bavaria in the German Supreme Court to make them remove crucifixes from public school classrooms, courtrooms, offices, and other walls of public places. The German Supreme Court decided against Bavaria and told them to get rid of the crucifixes. The President of the State of Bavaria told the German Supreme Court that if they wanted to take the crucifixes down, they would have to come to Bavaria and do it themselves. He also told them, that personally he did not think that it would be a safe thing to do. The crucifixes are still up !
Click to expand...
Sounds like we should move to Bavaria!
 
Germany still has church taxes, where one registers one’s denomination and the taxes go to that denomination.

This was an in issue in 2010 when the last round of clerical scandals hit and a large percentage of German Catholics left the Church. For Germany the statistics were readily at hand because leaving the Church was accomplished by deregistering for the tax. It was also likely that many of those who left then had already stopped attending, but had remained registered as Catholics until the decided to leave following the scandals.

See also Church Tax [wikipedia]
A church tax is a tax imposed on members of some religious congregations in Austria, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Iceland, Italy, Sweden, some parts of Switzerland and several other countries.
Click to expand...
 
Some Scandinavian countries have church taxes too (ie taxes that go to the churches).

It’s not necessarily a good idea because sometimes a government can impose its will on churches; if they don’t toe the line they lose the funding.
 
To the OP, what they are talking about was a tax, imposed by the State, on everyone based on their religion. The money is not kept by the State but pays for Church things. Some people who didn’t want to pay this ‘Church tax’, formally defected from the religion by publicly proclaiming that they were no longer Catholic, or Lutheran, or whatever. In the case of Catholics, this was often done by writing to the Bishop. The Church where they were baptized was notified and entered their formal defection in the baptismal record. Between 1983 & 2009 that meant that they no longer had to marry in the Church but that was removed from Canon Law in 2009 and now formal defection is no longer something that is possible to avoid having to marry in the Church. I have no idea if it’s still possible to formally declare oneself no longer a Catholic for the purpose of avoiding taxes.
 
Yes we pay church tax here in Sweden too, although they changed the name to “membership fee” or something like that. It pretty much means that the state collects one percent of your income together with the other taxes and gives it to church. Not all denominations ask this of their members, but the Catholic Church does indeed. If someone is really struggling, they can ask for an exception though…
 
Nils said:
Yes we pay church tax here in Sweden too, although they changed the name to “membership fee” or something like that. It pretty much means that the state collects one percent of your income together with the other taxes and gives it to church. Not all denominations ask this of their members, but the Catholic Church does indeed. If someone is really struggling, they can ask for an exception though…
Click to expand...
Would you say that these taxes or fees affect Church membership or Mass attendance in a negative way?
 
Monica02 said:
Would you say that these taxes or fees affect Church membership or Mass attendance in a negative way?
Click to expand...
Dear Monica,

I would not say it has that affect. Sweden is one of the most secularized countries in the world and I think less then 5 percent actually attend a Christian service on a regular basis (one a month would be regular). Despite this, almost 70 percent are still officially members of the Lutheran church, even though they collect one percent of your income.

We Catholics are a minority (1 percent I think) and we are mostly represented by immigrants or children of immigrants (we have less then 100 converts per year). I would not say the lack of converts is because of the tax though, because as you can see, most people pay it willingly to the Lutheran church even though they do not go there to worship…

There is however one negative consequence that I think is obvious: When people pay tax, they feel like they have done their share. I know the Lutherans has a major problem with recruiting volunteers to help out with stuff, they even have well payed staff to make the coffee for the parishioners after the service. As Catholics we do not suffer as much from this, mainly because the Church is still poor, but we do not have as many volunteers as the “free churches” who do not ask for any tax from their members…

So once again, the short answer would be that it does not have any major affect on Church membership. If people really want to belong but cannot afford it, the Church will give you permission not to pay.

I hope this was of any help!

Yours,
Nils
 
My aunt says that they also pay it, in Germany. If you stop paying, they read your names in Mass and you are out.
However, the only effect is that some pay to avoid the shame of being publicly named, even if they don’t usually go to church. In some cases, they even read the names back home, in your country, if you were an immigrant.

In our country, part of everyone’s taxes goes to churches of all denominations, the amount depends on the size of each, but CC gets a vast majority and others get very little, which is a major objection for other religions, who feel they do not get a fair share, and atheists.

Those who call themselves Catholics are a majority, but there are very few practising Catholics, and there are other denominations. There are many atheists and I was actually suprised at the last census, I was expecting more atheists, every census everyone is screaming atheist, and then when the actual census comes they declare themselves as Roman Catholics. I guess they are reluctant to put it on paper.
 
Ms_Manners said:
I guess they are reluctant to put it on paper.
Click to expand...
So do you think that means there’s hope for these practical atheists/agnostics who can’t quite bring themselves to formally and legally (even in complete anonymity) renounce their religion?
 
SgtSchultz said:
So do you think that means there’s hope for these practical atheists/agnostics who can’t quite bring themselves to formally and legally (even in complete anonymity) renounce their religion?
Click to expand...
I don’t think so. Well, actually, yes, when they get old and start to fear, but not before. And not really, because they will start praying to try to save their souls, but they will completely miss all other aspects. I know, better than nothing, but still…

Catholicism is a tradition here, and “what will the neighbours say” attitude is very strong, and most people don’t really believe that the census is anonymous, so just to be on the safe side…
But they all still complain about the tax money going to the Church.
 
SgtSchultz said:
My understanding was that more people pay the tax than attend mass.
Click to expand...
This is correct.

cara.georgetown.edu/CARAServices/intmassattendance.html

The numbers in the table are the % of Catholics in different countries that attend mass on a weekly basis, not the % of the general population.

In Germany a person gets signed up as a Catholic or Protestant (or whatever) when they get baptized and after that they are considered a member of that religion. When they are taxed, a % is taken out for the support of the religion that they are signed up for. In Germany, it’s 8 or 9% of your income taxes that you donate, according to the estimates I’m seeing.

The law in Germany allows people to “opt out” of paying these Church taxes, but in order to do so the person has to “disaffiliate” with the Church. IN order to do this, you go to the local government offices and sign papers. There have been recent articles in the news about this.

There are similar systems in several countries in that geographical region. Austria and Switzerland have similar systems, and some of the Scandinavian countries also have a Church tax.

It’s an old system and there has been controversy about it for a long time. The latest bit of controversy is just more of the same.
 
In the 18th century, peasants were burdened by a heavy tax system and were required to tithe a tenth of their income to the Catholic Church prior to The French Revolution.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top