{"id":45690,"date":"2014-09-04T14:40:20","date_gmt":"2014-09-04T14:40:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/127.0.0.1\/site\/2017\/2\/1985\/wsj_in_germany_many_believers_balk_at_tweak_to_church_tax\/"},"modified":"2014-09-04T14:40:20","modified_gmt":"2014-09-04T14:40:20","slug":"wsj_in_germany_many_believers_balk_at_tweak_to_church_tax","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/?p=45690","title":{"rendered":"(WSJ) In Germany, Many Believers Balk at Tweak to Church Tax"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In Germany, being an official church member usually means paying an extra tax. But a change in the country&#8217;s tax code is now causing many believers to leave the fold.<\/p>\n<p>Germany is just one of a number of European countries where members of the main organized religions pay a special levy on income to provide the bulk of churches&#8217; finances. But when a loophole concerning income from capital gains closes next year, church leaders have good reason to expect an exodus.<\/p>\n<p>So far this year, the number of Germans leaving the country&#8217;s Protestant and Catholic churches has reached its highest level in 20 years, twice last year&#8217;s level\u201d\u201da surge many clergy and finance experts blame on the changes in how the tax is levied.<\/p>\n<p>The outflow is now fueling a debate about whether a levy that goes back to the 19th century is an appropriate way to finance churches in an increasingly secularized Germany.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/online.wsj.com\/articles\/in-germany-many-believers-balk-at-tweak-to-church-tax-1409710540\">Read it all<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In Germany, being an official church member usually means paying an extra tax. But a change in the country&#8217;s tax code is now causing many believers to leave the fold. Germany is just one of a number of European countries<span class=\"ellipsis\">&hellip;<\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"read-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/?p=45690\">Read more &#8250;<\/a><\/div>\n<p><!-- end of .read-more --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":794,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48,39,40,50,149,168,200,478,114,184,151,108,441,587,34],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-45690","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-christian-life-church-life","category-culture-watch","category-economics-politics","category-international-news-commentary","category-economy","category-ethics-moral-theology","category-europe","category-germany","category-law-legal-issues","category-parish-ministry","category-politics-in-general","category-religion-culture","category-stewardship","category-taxes","category-theology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45690","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/794"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=45690"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45690\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=45690"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=45690"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=45690"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}