No, no, you see: This is not about drawing in taxes from the churches via their members. This is about collecting taxes for the churches, as a service! It's very convenient for them: Don't do anything and get your member fees delivered to your bank account, for free, every month :-)
Why is the government helping churches?
Re:Two types of privacy
by Swenrekcah on Monday June 27, 2022 @06:54AM
(#31892791)
For historical reasons. The churches used to be much more politically active in the deep past and collected their dues directly. There also wasn’t any sort of safety net provided by the lords of the land, but churches provides some. This has evolved to a system where the church largely stays out of politics and has no direct or official influence, but gets money from the state. This is also helpful for the state to influence the church, for example like with the acceptance of gay marriage.
Re:Two types of privacy
by MomoXenosaga on Monday June 27, 2022 @08:23AM
(#31893532)
Precisely this. The beautiful buildings in the Vatican are maintained with Bayern money.
The German Catholic church needs to be careful not to drive away their tithes with a hateful message. Catholicism in Germany is like a gym membership: nobody shows up but they forget to cancel and keep paying.
Besides, not every person who is religious even goes to church.. and even if they go, they don't necessarily go every day or even every year of their life. So it makes no sense to tax them unless you could monitor when they go to church.
Churches, however, could be taxed on their revenue, which does not invade the privacy of their members.