Church Tax
Interesting discussion about religion over lunch. So apparently in Germany and Austria if you declared yourself as Roman Catholic or Protestant you'd have to pay a certain percentage of your income each month to the church. And if you weren't working, you'd still have to pay, if you declared your religion as such. This is obligatory, and only if you left the church would you be free from church tax. But why? Shouldn't these things be voluntary? I mean of course these funds wouldn't be channelled into just the upkeep of the church, but also other useful activities and programmes (apparently churches receive 70% of church tax). But it sounds to me like extortion in the name of religion. And shouldn't church and state be two separate entities?
"…particularly in Europe, is the tax some national governments impose on income on behalf of the state church. Austria, Germany, the Nordic countries and Switzerland all have such a church tax, though in the chart it is included only in the cases of Denmark and Switzerland. One may ask whether the church tax really is a ‘tax’ as defined by international organisations: a compulsory, unrequited payment to general government."
http://www.oecdobserver.org/news/fullstory.php/aid/77/The_income_taxes_people_really_pay.html
"The church tax is only paid by members of the respective church. People who are not member 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."
