Public transport too. It really seems like every time a public service is privatised it goes to shit, almost as if for-profit motives aren’t aligned to public interest.
Could be worse, I guess. I live in a “secular” democracy that essentially collects members fees for the Catholic and Lutheran churches (and only those two!) via the federal income tax.
In Germany, state-recognized churches collect taxes from their members in order to finance their activities as well as wages. Everyone who is a member of an officially recognized religious group automatically gets a percentage of their monthly wage taken from their paycheck. Usually, this amounts to around 9% of income tax — with the exception of Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg, where the church tax amounts to 8%.
For native Germans, church tax is often automatically collected. Many Germans are baptized at a young age and thereby become members of a particular church, which means they pay taxes to that church when they begin to earn income as an adult.
If you’re a foreigner moving to Germany, you can declare your affiliation to a church when you register at your local citizen’s office.
9%? That’s absurd. Is there a way to remove yourself from this?
Sure: There is a third box “no confession” next to “Catholic” and “Protestant” on the form. You can check that and those 9% remain with the state instead.
German secularism has a few more peculiarities. Many charitable organizations e.g. running hospitals or institutions caring for the homeless, elderly, and disabled are in fact religious (Diakonie, Johanniter, Caritas, Stadtmission, …). This has some unfortunate effects: They often hire people of Christian faith only, meaning atheists or adherents of other religions are mostly excluded at these organizations. There have also been cases of a doctor at a Christian-run hospital denying the abortion because of their faith – despite abortion being legal here. However, much of the money these organizations receive is in fact public money, supposedly spent on serving the public. Another wrinkle is that Religious Law is used when it comes to e.g. prosecuting rape cases involving priests etc. Somehow, this separate system of law that doesn’t really seem to work particularly well is accepted by the German state.
Just want to clarify: It is 9% of the income tax, not 9% of the income. Still too high, but not as absurd as some people may think after reading this incorrectly. I know some people who thought that it is 9% of the income although they were paying church tax for years…
Honestly I didn’t realize that. That does make it a bit more reasonable but it’s still a lot of the income tax. But the other explanations I’ve read sort of make it make sense. Churches were the original social services for the needy and Germany basically coopted the model into their tax system - rather than tearing down religious hospitals or making them private.
Definitely not how that works. All companies are taxed and they don’t get any special representation outside lobbying that they were going to do either way and churches do in fact put a lot of the money they should have payed in taxes into lobbying.
To some degree, agreed, but your original assertion is still wrong. Unless you count all the devoutly religious people in Congress, and they already have that representation.
No, but well-connected companies use regulatory capture to structure taxes as a burden on their competition.
Consider for a moment how churches would be taxed. Maybe they are taxed on their assets. That would disproportionately affect larger churches with valuable real estate holdings, like the Catholic and Mormon churches. Maybe the donations they receive are taxed. That disadvantages newer churches which don’t have corporate investments or endowments. Tax land? Hurt cemeteries. Tax salaries? Favor Quaker meeting houses where there is no specific pastor.
Look, I don’t think churches should be involved in politics. Any that donate to candidates or endorse a party should lose their tax exempt status, because they are no longer churches. But a blanket removal of all tax exemptions for religious organizations is a threat to religious freedom. It would allow the religious leaders in government to play favorites and pick winners, kind of like they do now already.
Tax code is applied by politicians. Do you really expect Christian Conservatives to fairly tax Muslims and Sikhs and Hindus at the same rates as their own churches? Freedom of Religion cannot exist when political leaders are able to tax competing religions into oblivion.
What if I’m in my own home minding my own business and an attacker named Enola comes and waltzes right in my door and how do I protect my property then?? Some people smh
Well the waste of land part doesn’t really matter much cause if we ever did need that land for other things, it’s still there. It’s not as though building a golf course makes that patch of land into an irradiated wasteland that can never be used for anything else again.
Golf is equivalent to licking an entire countryside so nobody else can use it. The only activity in human history that used more space for less people were the Apollo moon landings.
But in reality, military aerial drones are much more terrifying. It sounds like a sci-fi dystopia that a billionaire could type your name, press a kill button, and within a few minutes a drone locates and bombs you. But this tech has already existed for over a decade, and is being used by the US in the Middle East and North Africa.
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