Italian church to be stripped of tax exemption from 2013

[Cristiano]

Please read the larger excerpt I provided. It gives many examples.

Seems the truth is hard to take for some.

You have not provided any evidence for the accusation that you made in your post #22. You are just providing general statistics that do not provide any evidence of what you affirmed.

I also think that talking about a potential loss of revenues, is just slang to say we have a political agenda. A person educated about the Italian economy would understand that the present economic crisis started to brew more than ten years ago, when there was the possibility of putting the financial brakes in place but it was inconvenient to all the political spectrum to address it. The conservatives messed up big and the political parties on the left sat down like idiots hoping for disaster in order to take over the government one more time.

 

[The_Scott]

You are both delusional.

Just to let you know: if you continue saying things like above, you will most likely be banned. Disagreeing with posters and ideas are perfectly fine, but once you start calling people crazy or stupid, that is breaking the forum rules. Not to mention it is childish and incredibly rude.

 

[Elsa1]

You have not provided any evidence for the accusation that you made in your post #22. You are just providing general statistics that do not provide any evidence of what you affirmed.

What exactly are you talking about? This post is talking about the Vatican being finally taxed on properties that were previously tax exempt because of a loophole exempting them if they did not have a 100% commercial use, thus meaning there was some sort of even ambiguous religious/Church link to it. Whether the link is a chapel, a couple of nuns or is previous monastery, these properties will NOW be taxed.

Here is more for you to read including about the “shopping centers” the Vatican owns in Italy. You suppose there might be a small chapel tucked away in them? globalpost.com/dispatch/news/culture-lifestyle/world-religion/120217/italy-to-tax-vatican-commercial-properties

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[Elsa1]

Just to let you know: if you continue saying things like above, you will most likely be banned. Disagreeing with posters and ideas are perfectly fine, but once you start calling people crazy or stupid, that is breaking the forum rules. Not to mention it is childish and incredibly rude.

You are probably right. I should not say delusional. My apologies.

 

[beehumble]

There are religious institutes that rent rooms to pilgrims, that is their religious charter. The money collected is for self support and charity work. It is not trivial to get a room in a convent and the residency rules that you have to abide to are not a good fit for non pilgrims. Again these institutes are not for profit organizations whose charter is to spread the gospel. I also think that there is a residency tax associated with the cost of the rent like in a hotel, however the property itself is not taxed.

Ok. Yes, I meant visitors to Rome. My family (me, my wife, and two kids) stayed in a convent on a vacation to Rome and other places in Italy, and it was quite enjoyable! It was actually trivial to get a room - we just called a convent we found on the internet or a tour book, and struggled through the language barrier - the nun spoke broken English so it worked out. As with any hotel reservations when traveling, we booked way in advance. The rules were no problem either - there was a 1 AM curfew, as far as I recall, and that was it. (The doors to the convent were locked at 1 am and not opened until morning, so you would have to find another room late at night if you were not back by 1 .) And it included a good continental breakfast with outstanding cappuccino!

I would hate to see those disappear, and it sounds like they won’t be taxed since they are non-profit.

God bless you.

 

[Cristiano]

What exactly are you talking about? This post is talking about the Vatican being finally taxed on properties that were previously tax exempt because of a loophole exempting them if they did not have a 100% commercial use, thus meaning there was some sort of even ambiguous religious/Church link to it. Whether the link is a chapel, a couple of nuns or is previous monastery, these properties will NOW be taxed.

Here is more for you to read including about the “shopping centers” the Vatican owns in Italy. You suppose there might be a small chapel tucked away in them? globalpost.com/dispatch/news/culture-lifestyle/world-religion/120217/italy-to-tax-vatican-commercial-properties

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You are just throwing accusations around claiming that the Church did something immoral, slandering her but you are not willing to provide evidence for that only innuendos. You clearly have an agenda, I hope that it is not simple plain anti-Catholicism.

 

[Cristiano]

Ok. Yes, I meant visitors to Rome. My family (me, my wife, and two kids) stayed in a convent on a vacation to Rome and other places in Italy, and it was quite enjoyable! It was actually trivial to get a room - we just called a convent we found on the internet or a tour book, and struggled through the language barrier - the nun spoke broken English so it worked out. As with any hotel reservations when traveling, we booked way in advance. The rules were no problem either - there was a 1 AM curfew, as far as I recall, and that was it. (The doors to the convent were locked at 1 am and not opened until morning, so you would have to find another room late at night if you were not back by 1 .) And it included a good continental breakfast with outstanding cappuccino!

I would hate to see those disappear, and it sounds like they won’t be taxed since they are non-profit.

God bless you.

Just remember that income is taxed in Italy and deductions can be applied, here we are talking only about property taxes.

 

[Elsa1]

You are just throwing accusations around claiming that the Church did something immoral, slandering her but you are not willing to provide evidence for that only innuendos. You clearly have an agenda, I hope that it is not simple plain anti-Catholicism.

I am not the one who passed the law. The Italian goverment did based on the facts at hand. Moreover, according to, apparantly, at least one Vatican official, he agrees with it! I can be a Catholic and face the truth at the same time. I think we need a seperate thread on this.

 

[Dubay]

Tax the church, sure go right ahead. Tax their meatballs, no way that is sacrilegious.

 

[Tighty_Whitey]

I don’t see this as a big issue. The tax is not on the collection plate passed during Mass. Rather it is on the Church’s commercial endeavors. From what I gleaned from the article it seems that the Church has enjoyed a preference under the current tax code that has permitted them to avoid taxes on profits if there was a portion of the endeavor, ie: a chapel that was used solely for religious purposes.

 

[pepipop]

rt.com/news/italy-church-tax-exemption-339/

*Italy’s Catholic Church will be forced to pay taxes starting in 2013 after the EU pressured the country’s government to pass a controversial law stripping the Church of its historic property tax exemption.

*The Catholic Church in Italy is excluded from paying taxes on its land if at least a part of a Church property is used non-commercially – for instance, a chapel in a bed-and-breakfast.

“The regulatory framework will be definite by January 1, 2013 – the start of the fiscal year – and will fully respect the [European] Community law,” Italian premier Mario Monti’s government said in a statement on Tuesday.

The move could net Italy revenues of 500 million to 2 billion euros annually across the country, municipal government associations said. The extra income from previously exempt properties in Rome alone – including hotels, restaurants and sports centers – could reach 25.5 million euros a year, La Repubblica daily newspaper reported.

On Monday, the Council of State, Italy’s highest ranking court for administrative litigation, ruled against the new law. Authorities stepped in, arguing that everyone in Italy should pay property tax, including the Church.

The measure came after the country’s leadership decided in February to alter Italy’s property tax code, ending the Church’s longstanding privileges due to the severe debt crisis.

Last December, after new austerity measures were adopted in the country, 130,000 Italians signed an online petition urging the government to strip the Church of its tax exemption.

“It was time that they paid, too, with all the exemptions they’ve had throughout the years,” Marco Catalano, a 35-year-old shopkeeper in Rome, told the New York Times in February, adding that he goes to church twice a month. “They own the most beautiful buildings in downtown Rome, on Italian soil, and rent them out at market prices. They don’t give them for free or at low prices for charity.”

Two years ago, the EU began to investigate whether the tax privileges of some Church properties in Italy could be considered illegal state aid.*

 

[Cristiano]

There is already an ongoing thread on the same topic.

Italian church to be stripped of tax exemption from 2013

 

[EmperorNapoleon]

Punishing the Church for secular failures in welfare and banking?

Shame :sad_yes:

I’d hardly consider this a punishment. The Catholic Church owns 20% of all real estate in Italy including shipping ports, hotels, strip malls, sports centers, restaurants, rental properties, etc. worth approximately $11.7 billion US dollars. Taxing these properties alone could yield a revenue up to $945 million US dollars per year and Italy can’t afford for such a vast and ever growing amount of secular real estate to exist tax free just because its owned by the Church.

 

[The_Scott]

I’d hardly consider this a punishment. The Catholic Church owns 20% of all real estate in Italy including shipping ports, hotels, strip malls, sports centers, restaurants, rental properties, etc. worth approximately $11.7 billion US dollars. Taxing these properties alone could yield a revenue up to $945 million US dollars per year and Italy can’t afford for such a vast and ever growing amount of secular real estate to exist tax free just because its owned by the Church.

I think a lot of this confusion is from the poorly-written article. It could have done a better job explaining what exactly is changing, I think.

 

[gus]

I’d hardly consider this a punishment. The Catholic Church owns 20% of all real estate in Italy including shipping ports, hotels, strip malls, sports centers, restaurants, rental properties, etc. worth approximately $11.7 billion US dollars. Taxing these properties alone could yield a revenue up to $945 million US dollars per year and Italy can’t afford for such a vast and ever growing amount of secular real estate to exist tax free just because its owned by the Church.

What prevents the Church like any landload from passing on the tax increases?

 

[EmperorNapoleon]

What prevents the Church like any landload from passing on the tax increases?

So what if they do?

 

[atheistgirl]

Punishing the Church for secular failures in welfare and banking?

Shame :sad_yes:

How is the Church being punished?

Shouldn’t the Church, if it owns a commercial business, pay tax on that business?

What reasons can you give, that the Church, if it owns some office real estate where it rents out office space say, shouldn’t pay tax on that business income.

I ask, because I’d like to try and use the same excuse

Sarah x

 

[Yerusalyim]

I have absolutely no problem with this. Why shouldn’t the church pay property tax on this real estate?

 

[Cristiano]

How is the Church being punished?

Shouldn’t the Church, if it owns a commercial business, pay tax on that business?

What reasons can you give, that the Church, if it owns some office real estate where it rents out office space say, shouldn’t pay tax on that business income.

I ask, because I’d like to try and use the same excuse

Sarah x

Because the situation is different from the Catholic Church in the USA. There is an international agreement between the Catholic Church and the Italian government in place. That agreement is the result of the war when Italy invaded the Vatican states. It is similar to international treaties between the USA and Germany or Japan. It is matter of international law and not of internal law like in the USA.

The USA have a lot of privileges and exemptions from the Italian code of penal law and the Italian code of civil law when it comes to military bases in Italy. In the past USA pilots were not arrested in Italy and charged with criminal homicide while their Italian counterparts would be still in jail. The USA pilots are free men here in the USA. It is international law based on agreements between countries.

 

[BobCatholic]

Who knows what will happen? Perhaps this will be a blessing in disguise, in a way. If we take away the tax-exemption, then that is one less thing for militant secularists to complain about.

Militant secularists will just raise taxes until no more Catholic Church.

The power to tax is the power to destroy, and secularists love to destroy.