Why Is Germany Collecting Taxes for the Catholic Church?

The German Catholic Bishops Conference issued a decree in September warning that those Germans who opted out of paying the country’s “church tax” would no longer be entitled to sacraments, religious burial or any part of parish life.

This “church tax” is a special tax collected in Germany and several other Western European nations that was introduced in the 19th century in compensation for the nationalization of religious property. All Germans who officially register as Catholics, Protestants or Jews on their tax documentation must pay a religious tax of 8 to 9 percent on their annual income tax bill.