German Religion Tax

[Mama hamster]

Oh the Kindergeld ... My Ex was the oldest of 13 ( quite rare in Germany/the family was not religious just crazy) at times they collected 3500$/month worth in child benefits. That would be a lot of TTC to go around for the fundies.

[SpeshulTaterTot]

Oh the Kindergeld ... My Ex was the oldest of 13 ( quite rare in Germany/the family was not religious just crazy) at times they collected 3500$/month worth in child benefits. That would be a lot of TTC to go around for the fundies.

And you know the fundies would have no problems taking the money, despite it being from the ebil government and all that.

[julie paradox]

Ahem. The Church of England does not receive direct government support (as a charity it gets Gift Aid, which is where the government gives the charity the tax you paid on your donation, but so do the Methodists and the Catholics and I'm presuming the Muslims and Hindus and everyone else as well although I have no actual idea of their charitable status).

[Hannie]

As far as I know, in Germany you can decide to stop paying taxes, but oftentimes it means that you can't receive sacraments anymore like communion for Catholics. Of course you can still go to a regular service, but they'll probably won't like having you participate in other activities.

Also, depending on your field of work, leaving the church can be problematic if you are working in health care or as a kindergarden teacher for instance in an institution sponsored by the church. They can terminate your job because of that. Similarly, when a church-sponsored employer finds out you are gay, about to divorce and remarry, etc. it can be a reason for them to fire you. Which is outrageous in my opinion, because there are a) anti-discrimination laws for all other employers and b) many of those institutions are also in part sponsored by the state. There have been a couple of cases during the last years where the churches fired people for reasons like that. One case that comes to mind is that of a gay kindergarden teacher who wanted to go on maternity leave and when they found out she was gay, they attempted to fire her during her leave. Oh well. I could go on and on about this. :D