communal germany

[Guest guest]

Namaskar,

in request yo my questions on whether germans have to pay tax for the church

parag from germany has come with some interesting info, esp answer 4 read on.

cheers and om sanjeev

Answer 3)Yes the word 'secular' is defined in german constitution as well as in

the constitution of other major countries of interest, though wording of

definition can differ slightly.

Secular definition says/implies that Government and Religion are two seperate

things and must be kept seperate. The State has to deal with people

irrespective of their faith or religion. All Laws are same for every citizen,

either minority citizen of majority one. There are no special laws for special

interests of minorities/majority.

200 years ago in germany all the land was owned by Church. The basic

interpretation from Secularism which germans/other europeans derive is that

secularism means all land to be taken away from church and handed over to local

administration..

Amongst these major countries, US tries to be less secular and more christian

even though bush etc. speak free society etc. There is also christian

fundamentalism growing in US where there are attacks on doctors who perform

abortion for girls.

Answer 4) Yes, In Germany every Christian pays from 7-9% of the his tax to

church. Tax percentage varies for different situations of a person if he is

married/single/has kids etc. If his tax is 40% of salary, he pays 7-9% of that

40%(meaning 3-4% of his total tax to the church. If one is not a christian, he

can disclose it and this amount will not be charged. This is basically done

only for convenince of both the person and the church so that church does not

have to collect the money through alternative channels. Even a christian can

decide not to pay this amount but then he has small social problems like no

priest of any church will arrange his marriage in any church..Plus he will have

trouble to get his children admitted into some Kinder Garten schools run by

church..That is why christians here(max.) do pay this amount. This amount is

used by the church to make more churchus or development work in Germany or

other under-developed countries(read conversion activities)..A friend of a

friend of mine did not pay this amount to church and his to-be-bride wanted the

marriage to take place only in church..So this person had to request a priest

several times and paid this so-called church tax for the last 4 years. Only

then he could marry in a church.

Answer 5) Every religious group irrespective of its number has full right to

handle its places of worship. Govt. does not and cannot take their money. The

religious places of worship also come under general clubs which include Human

Rights Clubs, Environment protections clubs, wild-life protection clubs etc. If

someone donates money to these, neither the donar nor the club have to pay any

tax for that amount to the govt. This club system and the management thereafter

have nothing to do with the question of being a minority, etnically different or

from different faith.

Answer 6) Yes here in every european country there is at least one political

party which is Christian Nationalist Party. These parties in almost all these

countries are a little conservative and anti-Immigration etc. If one is a

Christian and a member of say Christian Democratic Union of Germany he has

better chances to run up the power ladder compared to a muslim or hindu..

BY THE INDIAN YARDSTICK - IS GERMANY A COMMUNAL COUNTRY?