I was shocked to hear from a relative of a relative who lives in Germany that employers deduct 10% from one’s wages as tithes to the Roman Catholic church, even if you’re of another faith. How can this be? I had always heard good things about Germany from this relative, but this blew my mind. I don’t think I could live there knowing I was being forced to contribute to a religion (any religion). I’ve done some searching for more info, and found a site that stated that, like the Roman Catholics, the Protestants are supported by “taxes and contributions.” However, the relative in Germany said nothing about deductions for Protestant faiths (although that would be just as intolerable to me). Have Germans simply accepted this? Don’t they have activist individuals and groups who take on such issues? I received this info second-hand, so perhaps my informant did not have all the facts. Please enlighten me.
I don’t know how it is exactly in Germany. It is probably similar to Switzerland. Here you can tell the state which religion you are and the state collects the church taxes from you, although it is nowhere near 10% (more like 1-2% max.) and you of course can opt out by not specifying a religion.
I’d wager that it has something to do with “tax effective” contribution, that is, you aren’t charged income tax on that amount, much as you can claim a tax deduction for donating to charity.
It’s called “Kirchensteuer” (church tax) in German, but your relative got some things wrong.
First, it’s not 10 %. I don’t know the current rate, but it’S surely much less.
Second, it’s not only the Roman Catholic Church that receives those monies, it’s every church that is recognized as something referred to as a Körperschaft des öffentlichen Rechts (which could be translated roughly as “coporation of public law”); basically it means the church has been granted a status similar to public authorities (but the churches retain internal autonomy and self-administration, which is constitutionally guaranteed). The Lutheran Church also possesses this status, and I think the Baptists as well. I don’t know about others offhand, as something like 90 % of all Germans is either Catholic, Lutheran, or atheist. I know Jehovah’s Witnesses have been suing for being granted this status as well, but without success so far.
Thirdly, you only have to pay it if you’re a member, and the tax deducted goes to the church you’re a member of. So don’t worry. There are plans of making a substitute “cultural tax” mandatory which would go to the state if you’re not a member of any church (to compensate for the cultural infrastructure the churches provide), but currently there’s no such thing.
And yes, the separation of church and state is not 100 % perfect in Germany.
Done a quick google search and it seems that the situation in Germany is a bit differen that here. If you want to get out of paying church taxes there you will have to provide prove that you do not belong to a church, probably a letter of excommunication or something similar.
The amount although is not 10% of your income, it’s 10% of your taxes.
IIRC, you pay it unless you provide an affadavit of some sort that says you don’t belong to any of the official state churches. I recall there being four, but I had work permits in both CH and DE, so I could have the two confused. Also, when I asked why anyone would want to pay this it apparently has some bearing as to whether you may have official church ceremonies (weddings, baptisms, funerals?). I remember the German HR manager suggesting I should opt out (the company would have paid it, anyway) which was fine with me.
Let me explain a bit more detailed. In Germany, there are local authorities referred to as the Einwohnermeldeamt, or resident’s register office. When you move from town A to town B, you’re legally obliged to stop by the office of your former home town to un-register and at your new residence to register, stating your religion. That way, the state knows which church you belong to.
When you’re not a member of any church but want to join, you normally go to the local pastor who baptizes you. The pastor will then notify the appropriate authorities so they know you’re a member now. Your confession goes on a little sheet of paper called the Lohnsteuerkarte (wage tax card) issued to you by local authorities. You hand in your card to your employer, who fills it in stating your income. Then you hand in your wage tax card together with your income tax declaration. Church tax (I looked it up, it’s something like 8-9 % of the wage tax you pay to the state) is deducted from your wages by tax authorities and forwarded to your church.
When you want to quit a church, you have to go to a local authority referred to as the Standesamt which is primarily competent for birth certificates, marriages (Germany has a system of mandatory secular marriage), and death certificates. You tell them you quit your church, and you’re out. This means you’re not going to pay church tax any more, since in the eyes of the state you’re not a member of that church, although to the church you might still be - regarding Catholicism, it’s hard to quit the church in the eyes of the church itself. Excommunication, which is a church penalty for certain crimes, does not end your church membership, it means you’re not eligible for receiving sacraments.
Official info on the subject. Partially quoting:
So there was some loss-of-information along the way, insofar as the nature of the tax – as we can see from the official page, the tax goes to the religious affiliation of the taxpayer, and you can choose to be non-affiliated.
If the employer were indeed doing retention-at-origin of the Kirchensteuer, then an unaffiliated employee would seem to have a 9% refund coming at year’s end.
This is evidently a carryover from the time when the various lander were sovereign countries with state religions that would be tax-supported, and that got grandfathered-in. With democratization, the spectrum of choices was widened, but still not every Tom, Dick and Hans can just show up and say “here’s my papers: register me as an incorporated religion”.
Everyone has pretty much answered your question, but as a side story:
When I was living ibn Germany, an American friend put down Buddist when asked his religion. Taxes were taken out of his pay and given to the Lutheran church. Pissed off, he asked why and his boss said, “well, Buddist isn’t a tax option so we figured Buddist was more Lutheran than Catholic.”
As an ex-Catholic, I had to write a letter to the Catholic church to get out of paying those taxes. They wrote me back a nasty note, pretty much condemning me to hell if I didn’t pay the tax. I wrote back that I didn’t care, but assured them that if I ever changed my mind, the Catholic church in my American hometown would most likely disagree with the German Catholic church threat. I never heard from them again and the tax was dropped from my next paycheck.
Part of the reason is that the many churches were built by the German governments over the ages, which presumably still owns the property. I could be wrong about the ownership, though.
Looks like an incompetent HR department. In such cases the Lohnsteuerkarte would presumably show ‘none’ as religion (the employer only needs the religion for payroll purposes (witholding church tax), so membership of a church/religion that hasn’t opted in to the church tax scheme is the same to the employer as being a member of no church at all).
BTW if you are not a member of a participating church you don’t need to wait for a refund - the employer simply does not withhold the tax from your wages.
The legal basis for the church tax was laid with the 1919 (Weimar) constitution which had a provision that churches could collect their tithes with the aid of the civil residents’ register. The churches then parlayed this into a scheme where the state does not only provide names to the churches’ tithe collectors but also collects the tithes on the churches’ behalf.
The larger churches like this state of affairs because
- the do not need to maintain a tithe-collecting administration parallel to the state’s income tax administration (so one’s income needs to be assessed just once, not twice).
- they are directly concerned only with the nice part of a church’s relationship with its members (tending to their flock), leaving the nasty part (shearing their flock) to the public tax administration.
The income tax cuts of the last few years have become a serious problem for the larger churches BTW as their revenue has been reduced in proportion (it is 8% or 9 %, depending on the federal state, of the income tax owed).
A number of smaller Protestant churches have chosen not to opt in to the church tax BTW as they want to keep their distance to the state; these collect their tithes in the form of donations.
Wouldn’t it be more proper to have an opt-in rather than opt-out system. I’d be a bit insulted to have to “un-register” myself with a religion, I wasn’t aware I’d joined any 
Yep, that’s correct. I’m German and while I was working in Germany I paid my Kirchensteuer to the Lutheran church. I’ve been working in the Netherlands for almost five years now, so I haven’t paid any Kirchensteuer during that time. However, since the Netherlands and Germany have something called a Zwischenstaatliche Vereinbarung über Sozial Sicherheit (“international agreement regarding social security”) I get all the German social security benefits based on the fact that I pay taxes in the Netherlands.
That means that I was able to get married in an official church ceremony in Germany, and my two children were baptized in Germany without paying a penny. I will also be allowed a complete funeral with burial in the family plot without paying, due to the church tax. Also, the church tax goes toward paying for the many hospitals and other social services the churches provide in Germany.
The actual amount of Kirchensteuer you pay depends on which “Bundesstaat” you live in. When I was living in Hessen it was 9% of my wage tax, while in Bayern it is 8%. For example, if I am married with two children and earning a gross monthly salary of 3000 Euros, my monthly Kirchensteuer would be 4.59 Euros in Hessen and 4.08 Euros in Bayern (This was calculated here). That’s about what a pack of cigarettes or a gallon of gasoline cost here, so it’s not quite as bad as the OP made it out to be.
Do they still typically pass an offering plate at church services?
Yes.
But the proceeds are usually for a specified charitable or development project rather than for the church’s general funds.
Correct. Also, at least for the Lutheran Church I went to, the collection plate was not passed out after every mass. It was usually only done at special occasions or when money needed to be collected for certain projects.
It is an opt-in system. You have to become a member of any religious community (whatever way this community requires) to be part of the scheme.
For most people, their parents made them a member of their respective religious community.
The church owns the property, although the state may subsidize maintenance costs.
Wow, my brother (who related this info) really got it wrong! He visited his son who lives in Germany; supposedly, my nephew’s wife, who is German, told my brother this. Well, brother is getting along in years and apparently got the info all confused. Thanks everyone for the information. Now I feel better. 