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Kasper, German Bishops, and the Church Tax

October 4, 2014 by Amy Welborn

In this age of 24-7, can’t escape information-mongering, it is amazing (or perhaps not) that actually reporting continues to suck.

Take this whole Synod on the Family thing.

Obviously, there is a lot of discussion regarding the Synod, much of that discussion being driven by Cardinal Kasper of Germany, who is just going on and on and on about compassion and mercy and such.

Plenty of people are talking about all of that.  What hardly anyone is doing, however is even trying to move beyond the ideological narratives, and raising questions about  the German church tax.

For that is really the most pressing issue facing the German Catholic Church.  And I really wonder why any of our highly-praised religion journalists are completely ignoring this issue and don’t even seem interested in connecting the dots or even asking Cardinal Kasper directly about how the Catholic Church in Germany understands and practices issues related to Church membership and the sacraments. And taxes.

Here’s the deal. I’m going to use the explanation of the German Church Tax that I found on a Mormon blog.  It’s clear and helpful:

…religious organizations in Germany can qualify to be treated as public law corporations. Public law corporation status provides a number of benefits, including exemption from income, inheritance, and gift taxes, the right to employ clergy as civil servants in various public facilities, and exemption from bankruptcy laws. In addition, public law corporations can impose the Church Tax on their members.

Churches actually get to draft their own tax ordinances (though the ordinances must be approved by the state). Generally, state statutes provide forms that these Church Taxes can take, including income, wealth, and property taxes. Though churches are technically responsible for collecting the tax themselves, they can—and usually do—enlist the state’s help. The government collects the tax through its wage withholding, then, after keeping a service fee, remits the rest of the Church Tax to the relevant church. When the Church Tax is imposed on a member’s income, it’s levied as 8 to 9 percent of her federal income tax liability, which amounts to between 3 and 4 percent of her income.

Recent changes have raised awareness of the tax and the exodus from formal church affiliation has been growing:

…in 2012, a German court held that churches could bar people who stopped paying the tax (by civilly withdrawing from the church) from participating in church activities, including becoming godparents and joining church-run clubs.

Second, church members will no longer be able to avoid paying the Church Tax on their capital gains. While technically it has always been imposed on capital gains, in the past, banks waited for customers to volunteer their religious affiliation. Under new rules, banks are required to report their customers’ affiliation, rather than wait. That is, while the underlying law hasn’t changed, the enforcement mechanism has just improved.

From the TaxProf Blog, quoting from a WSJ article:

German church members must pay an additional 8% to 9% of their gross annual income tax and capital gains tax bills to the church. That is typically steeper than in many other parts of Europe. A registered believer, for instance, paying a 30% income tax rate, or €30,000, on an income of €100,000, would pay another €2,400 to €2,700 in church tax. …

While the church tax had officially always been due on capital gains, it had never been properly enforced. Under the new rules, which the churches lobbied for, banks will be required to report their customers’ religious affiliations, rather than wait for customers to volunteer the information. “We’re not doing it for the additional revenue,” said Thomas Begrich, finance chief for the Protestant Churches of Germany, or EKD, defending the change. “The wealthy need to pay their fair share.”

The WSJ article is here.  I’m not sure if it’s behind a firewall or not for everyone, so I provide the link to the TaxProf blog as well.

So far this year, the number of Germans leaving the country’s Protestant and Catholic churches has reached its highest level in 20 years, twice last year’s level—a surge many clergy and finance experts blame on the changes in how the tax is levied.

"amy welborn"

More from Reuters on the recent changes:

German tax authorities collect an 8 or 9 percent premium on churchgoers’ annual tax bills and channel it to the faiths to pay clergy salaries, charity services and other expenses. Members must officially leave the church to avoid paying this.

Under a simplified procedure starting next year, banks will withhold that premium from church members earning more than 801 euros ($1,055) in capital gains annually and pass it on to tax authorities for distribution to the churches.

Letters from banks announcing the new procedure this summer and asking clients for their religious affiliation — so they can earmark funds to the right churches — have worried many members. Churches have scrambled to explain the changes.

“Nobody has to get angry and leave the church,” the Lutheran diocese of Braunschweig pleads on its website.

“I’m surprised because this isn’t a tax rise but just a new procedure,” Rev. Karl Juesten, the Catholic liaison official with parliament in Berlin, told the magazine Christ & Welt this week. “We should have become active earlier.”

Discussing the large sums involved is difficult for the churches, maybe more so now for Catholics because Pope Francis says he wants “a poor church for the poor” and makes a point of living in a simple apartment and riding in ordinary cars.

EMPTYING PEWS

National statistics are not yet available, but individual cases reported in recent weeks illustrate the problem.

For example, both the Lutheran diocese in Berlin and Stuttgart’s Catholic diocese reported a 50 percent jump in departures in the first half of 2014. That means about as many quit in only six months as had left in a full year before.

Some clergy have accused financial advisers of telling clients to quit their churches if they don’t want to pay up, a step that would have them barred from receiving the sacraments, being married in church or having a religious burial.

The banks replied with prompt and sharp denials.

“The churches are trying to get off easy. They should ask themselves why such a personal decision as belonging to a church is reduced to the issue of capital gains tax,” said Thomas Lange of the local banking association in Duesseldorf.

From a column at the Catholic Thing:

Some European journals are also calling for a reconsideration of the close financial link between Church and State in Germany. The Church draws a hefty income from this so-called church tax, and the clergy are paid rather large salaries by the state. Most Americans would be a bit shocked to learn that German bishops make between €8000 ($10,965) and €11,500 ($15,763) a month, depending upon their seniority. That comes to between $131,000 and $189,000 a year. Priests make less – but still far more than their American brother priests.

Der Spiegel is certainly not objective, but when you sort through the biases, you can get a sense of the financial..er…complexity of the Catholic Church in Germany.  The “Bishop of Bling” was only the most excessive of an excessive, wealthy bunch.

All right, then, you get the picture.  The German Catholic Church is a big business (the country’s second-largest employer) and it’s income is considerable.  There are various sources for that income, but a huge part of it is the church tax.  Fewer registered members?  Less income.

That’s one thing But here’s the other thing to keep in mind as you hear Cardinal Kasper talk. And talk and talk.

(Well, first you should be wondering why the head of a national church that is dying should have this constantly-turned on microphone on this issue.  Why are we even listening to him?  Aren’t we supposed to be listening to the Church from places where it is actually alive and growing? What happened to We’re-not-a-Western-European-Church-We’re-a-Global-Church?)

Okay, back to Germany.  Here’s how the German bishops responded to the growing exodus.  Back in 2012, they issued a decree.

This decree declared that if you’re Catholic, and you un-register with the German government and don’t pay the church tax…you’re basically excommunicated.  From, you know, the Eucharistic Table of the Lord.  You can’t be buried out of the Church unless you’ve repented. Heck, you can’t even chair the social committee:

From CNS:

“Conscious dissociation from the church by public act is a grave offense against the church community,” the decree said.

“Whoever declares their withdrawal for whatever reason before the responsible civil authority always violates their duty to preserve a link with the church, as well as their duty to make a financial contribution so the church can fulfill its tasks.”

The document added that departing Catholics could no longer receive the sacraments of penance, holy Communion, confirmation or anointing of the sick, other than when facing death, or exercise any church function, including belonging to parish councils or acting as godparents.

Marriages would granted only by a bishop’s consent and unrepentant Catholics would be denied church funerals, the decree said.

So yes, the de-registration is being interpreted as a formal defection from the Church.  Of course then, one does not receive the sacraments if one has taken this step.  But in the German context, there might be other reasons a Catholic would de-register which might have to do with, say, distrust of the national Church’s structure and unwillingness to support it, from either a liberal or conservative perspective.

Update:    I am fuzzy on whether the 2012 decree is actually in force. The German bishops at the time declared it was approved by the Vatican, which had, a few years previously declared that the practice was not valid.  Rome had declared in 2006, but this digging-in-the-heels German statement was in 2012. A discussion of it here.

Does all of this invalidate anyone’s statements or perspective?  Of course not.  But it is all very interesting, and seems to me very important context.

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Posted in Amy Welborn, Amy Welborn's Books, Catholicism, Church, Eucharist, germany, Jesus, Michael Dubruiel, Synod on the Family | Tagged Amy Welborn, Catholic, Catholicism, faith, Germany, Michael Dubruiel, religion, Synod on the Family | 26 Comments

26 Responses

  1. on October 4, 2014 at 4:31 pm Anne

    Wow! Thanks for the information about the church tax in Germany. I had no idea that there are places where your faith could be a tax burden. I always try to point my students to Aristotle and remind them that they need to discern what the author has at stake but also what is at stake for them. I’ve actually never read anything by Cardinal Kaspar, The Church politics being played out in the media is a near occasion of sin for me. It makes me anxious and interferes with my prayer life. So I guess what is at stake for me is peace,


  2. on October 4, 2014 at 11:35 pm bill bannon

    So….maybe it’s the vodka limeade I had this evening….but it seems that if you unregister in Cardinal Kasper’s area, you perish eternally in the eyes of the external forum because you’ve perhaps cut into his black truffle money but if you stay registered, you can divorce your wife for wrinkles, sans annullment, take up with a young BMW saleslady who is also registered and you both can aspire to eternal bliss with the sacraments because God is merciful about lust and vows but not about Bishops actually having a truffle crisis. I promised God I’d only have one vodka…but then…what is a promise really. And another thing…if a husband says something in the Black Forest and no wife hears it…is he still incorrect?


  3. on October 5, 2014 at 4:08 am Stephanie in Germany

    Yes, the Church tax is a big problem here. A system like in Italy is a much better alternative, but the change / transition there is almost overwhelming to even consider for both Church and State at this point.
    I must say the statements made about the Bishop of Limburg really pain me. You must know, Amy, that the German press, FAZ and Daniel Deckers in particular are very anti-Catholic. Yes, Tebartz von Elst made mistakes, but not alone. Since his installation in Limburg, the establishment in the diocese were working against him and just waiting to get rid of him, so they can continue with their liberal project.
    In my opinion, I don’t think it is money motivating Cardinal Kasper. He is, like many in the German Church, trying to keep the secular Catholics connected any way he can…..


  4. on October 5, 2014 at 9:50 am bill bannon

    Stephanie in Germany,
    I’m going to give you a novel concept because I have a on paper conservative Bishop with a double mansion with two pools and many, many rooms. Nothing says contraception better than a huge mansion for a celibate person alone because it is saying: we all need space ad infinitum. So ironically the castle Bishops who are often conservative on paper…are screaming the opposite message by their cubic footage proclivities to young people who can only hope for a small home in most cases. You need not agree with me…right now. But let the soup simmer for a few hours. Oddly Pope Francis who is not my cup of tea in some ways might be the large family Pope unwittingly because of his cubic footage choice. There are health reasons and other serious reasons for small family choice. I don’t want to binary this topic…my wife had brain stroke that was contained perhaps because it didn’t happen in child birth. We were near great surgeons and she was saved and lost no brain functions. I understand the small family choice that is serious. But our Catholic culture which is the outer shell of Catholicism has these contradictions that it is unaware of. What says contraception better than a $189K a year salary for a childless older man…a Bishop….few things I can think of. That’s like a married man with a large family making a million a year. Responders to this post have the last word.


  5. on October 5, 2014 at 9:57 am bill bannon

    ps…hemorrhagic stroke in the case of my wife…bleed through….not obstruction.


  6. on October 6, 2014 at 12:42 am Morning Catholic must-reads: 06/10/14 | CHRONICA

    […] Amy Welborn notes that German bishops seeking Communion for the remarried deny the sacrament to Catholics who don’t pay Church tax. […]


  7. on October 6, 2014 at 8:17 am Todd

    It would be “good” journalism to sleuth out who has been the loudest on both Communion for the remarried and no-Communion for the untaxed. I don’t think that’s being reported here. Reporters string facts together more or less conveniently and let the readers decide. Journalists, who seem to be few in number, do the research.

    The last WSJ graph is classic reporting, btw, and vacant on journalism. Who knew that minus-17% could be such a zero?


  8. on October 6, 2014 at 10:56 am Beverly De Soto

    SPOT ON AMY! We live in Germany, speak German and have written on this subject as well. And yes indeed…follow the money. http://bit.ly/1n0IfLB and once you get there, here’s what you find: http://blog.reginamag.com/rome-synod-family/


  9. on October 7, 2014 at 1:53 am Stephanie in Germany

    Beverly De Soto: yes, but we have to go further back in history than the ’60’s. What impact did the Nazi regime have on all the souls of this nation? It will take generations to recover. Soccer has become the savior here.


  10. on October 7, 2014 at 2:34 am Christopher Smith

    Money is important to them. Think of the publishing company the German Bishops Conference purchased… a publishers that also had a large amount of pornography and published it . The bishops were slow to sell their shares and burn the porn if they ever did? It is unheard in many countries for Bishops Conferences to act like investor tycoons with no morals.
    Beyond this lies a very German issue.. a ruthless logic of conformity. Whether left or right Germans are obsessive. German Catholics let their politics and nation set the agenda. They did nothing to block Protestant Militarism and Prussian dominance and coercion of German States. In the same way they initially supported Hitler and men like Rahner put up little resistance and the Church was disoriented by the fall of Germany in World war 1. They did little to prevent a war of Catholic against Catholic because their nation and its norms came first. They appeased and so they appease now allowing themselves to be tainted by being German. After WW2 they should have shut up but instead unable to accept their own fault launched a blitzkrieg of Modernism at Vatican II. Germany is a problem because Christianity comes a sad second to German culture.
    This synod needs to see them reminded and put in their place. The Church does not belong to Germany and their manifest errors must be blocked and liquidated. The German bishops are involved in a kulturkampf against the Church!


  11. on October 7, 2014 at 4:44 am Orson Taylor

    I raised this very issue on the forums at Catholic.com several days ago and the moderator removed my post and gave me 5 demerits for being unkind to Cardinal Kasper. I say, for him, business is business, such is the case of the Church in Europe, and quickly in America.


  12. on October 7, 2014 at 8:28 am Sean

    Yes indeed Christopher Smith, they own 100% of Weltbild, and still today one can stroll into any of their shops and find new age occultism, filthy DVDs. . They know all about the smut and other ungodly filth but do nothing about it as they make billions every year with this publishing house.


  13. on October 7, 2014 at 9:07 am Paul Matich

    I also feel nervousness to the fact that funds are collected in this manner for the Church in Germany. However, the fifth precept of the Church is “You shall help to provide for the needs of the Church”. CCC 2043 The Church in Germany is free to establish this precept how it sees fit, a faithful German should therefore comply. Not to follow a precept of the Church is a mortal sin.


  14. on October 7, 2014 at 9:49 am BXVI

    To understand where this push for communion for the remarried is coming from, you must understand the German Church. That’s the origin of this whole heretical movement. Read here:

    Secret Catholic Insider’s Guide to Germany: http://reginamag.com/secret-catholic-insider-guide-germany/

    What the Germans Want and Why: http://blog.reginamag.com/rome-synod-family/

    My guess is that almost no one but the most diligently inquisitive Catholic knows anything about this scandal.


    • on October 7, 2014 at 9:50 am Amy Welborn

      Thanks! The author of one of the articles had posted here earlier.


  15. on October 7, 2014 at 10:53 am bill bannon

    Paul,
    You mean well and sound young and zealous. But be very careful seeing mortal sin where it doesn’t exist. You left out that ccc 2043 actually says that each should give according to their ability. That is not the OT tithe which Aquinas said was rooted in their being 12 tribes with one needing support so that 1/11th would suffice from the 11 tribes but allowing for the poorest and the sinful, it became 1/10 th. The catechism is rather allowing each person to judge their own paying ability. The German system is circumventing that freedom which the Church is giving in the catechism. The Germans are replacing that catechism individual free judgement with coercion. You left that out and the part you did give is not really a part of either precept of the Church given in ccc 2043. It is an added sentence with no precept of the Church assignation. Here from the Vatican website:

    ccc 2043 The fourth precept (“You shall keep holy the holy days of obligation.”) completes the Sunday observance by participation in the principal liturgical feasts which honor the mysteries of the Lord, the Virgin Mary, and the saints.85
    The fifth precept (“You shall observe the prescribed days of fasting and abstinence.”) ensures the times of ascesis and penance which prepare us for the liturgical feasts; they help us acquire mastery over our instincts and freedom of heart.86

    The faithful also have the duty of providing for the material needs of the Church, each according to his abilities.87


  16. on October 7, 2014 at 10:57 am Casey

    Maybe I’m interpreting this wrong, but doesn’t it seem like enforced “tithing” in order to be a church “member” and have access to the sacraments is tantamount to simony? How is it the Vatican allows this system to continue?


  17. on October 7, 2014 at 11:24 am Synod on the Family: October 7 Update - BigPulpit.com

    […]   Cardinal Kasper’s “Mercy”: No Communion […]


  18. on October 7, 2014 at 2:33 pm Gonzalo Palacios

    PLEASE!! Let us heed Pope Francis advice to the Synod Fathers (October 6, 2014): “Speak with parrhesia and listen with humility.” I had to look up “parrhesia”. Today, Amy Welborn’s article on the German Catholic Church reminded me of Pope Francis’ request that we speak sincerely and truthfully. “All right, then, you get the picture,” Welborn writes, “The German Catholic Church is a big business (the country’s second-largest employer) and it’s income is considerable.” In this context, I ask Ms. Welborn to answer the following question “with parrhesia”: Where in the world, the “First” world nations, that is, is the Catholic Church NOT a big business?” Gonzalo T. Palacios, Ph.D.


  19. on October 7, 2014 at 10:04 pm Thomas J. Ryan (@RyanNX211)

    I don’t like him any more that Welborn but Michael Voris was on this issue a long time ago


  20. on October 8, 2014 at 12:18 am voxborealis1

    For even more context, this time historical: the “church tax” (Kirchensteuer) in Germany goes back to the 19th century, when the the modern German nation was formed. At the time, the increasingly centralized state siezed some church properties and cut off some longstanding church privilieges. The church tax was a form of compensation.

    This is not to say that the current situation is unproblematic. The realtive wealth of the church in Germany, that the clergy are effectively civil servants, the problematic relationship between the the church and state, etc. It’s almost certainly best for the church in Germany to disentangle itself from this system. But it shou;d be kept in mind that the Kirchensteuer has a long history and back story.


  21. on October 8, 2014 at 6:45 am gailf

    Wow. Veeeery interesting, especially as clericalism in Germany has caused so many problems in the past (ie: the Reformation). Here in the USA, many Catholics are asking how the Church can respond corporately to, say, mandates requiring all employers to pay for employee contraception. It seems like a no-brainer — Catholic employers, private or or associated with the Church, should refuse. And yet the majority do not, including very large Catholic colleges and organizations. Many have paid for employee contraception and sterilization for YEARS, with or without state laws requiring them to do so. It seems that in theory such decisions are easy, in practice — when employers operate in different states with different laws, and employ a wide variety of people, and have leadership that might or might not take Catholic teaching seriously, figuring out such a simple thing is hard.

    Now to Germany. One would think that churches would reject that law in the first place. It is abhorrent for a government to say who is and who isn’t a member of a church and who can receive the sacraments based on who pays taxes. But… “huius regio, cuius religio” was an outcome of the Reformation and so Europeans now have a long history with their governments determining what religions they belong to. It is easy to say, “those churches should refuse and operate with only what people donate, the way they do elsewhere.” But it would be very difficult for a church set up that way to change, and would German law allow them to do so? The economy is pretty good in Germany compared with the rest of Europe, but when your church membership is a tax and expenses are high, many people would feel forced to drop it because they can’t reduce it temporarily, or skip a weekly donation because of an unexpected expense.


  22. on October 8, 2014 at 6:59 am Jcar

    Do you know what is driving this? Banks. The banks make a ton of money on what is in their custody. All they need is to hold for a few days that money. They make their money by investing it and getting returns on their investments. The transactions are computerized and done at the speed of sound. The devil is the details. If the Church was smart, they should charge the banks a fee for holding that money.


  23. on October 8, 2014 at 11:52 am Terry Nelson

    Excellent post Amy. This needs better circulation. I have relatives in Germany and it is a big issue for them – not many in the U.S. understand this.


  24. on October 8, 2014 at 9:31 pm mike

    This is one more attack by the forces of evil. People naturally resent taxes, the church taxes, resent the church, leave the faith. Good Christians should do all in their power to abolish these taxes. Give freely.


  25. on October 12, 2014 at 1:12 pm Pete

    Interesting information that I have not seen reported to-date. This explains the crux of the situation. Thanks, Ms. Welborn.
    I can imagine how fast the churches would clear out in America (over who few are still coming) if something like this was in place.



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