Kirchensteuer, or church tax, is a a tax on income in Germany that benefits a church that the payer belongs to. The level of tax depends on the state or Bundesland that you live in.

Payment is made from your wages by your employer to the Finanzamt, therefore the church who benefits is noted on the Lohnsteuerkarte.

For the main churches, the Kirchensteuer is an important form income. They do, however, use this to provide services to the community which in other countries may be charged for separately.

To hear a simple explanation and a short discussion in German, listen to the podcast:

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Disclaimer: this podcast is a simple explanation for non-native speakers. For tax advice, please contact a Steuerberater.

Tags: Church, Tax

Some other posts on this topic that you might like to read:

• Why tax is a big issue in Germany
• The new German coalition
• Should the rich pay more tax?

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 23rd, 2008 at 12:49 am and is filed under Monday Podcasts, Podcasts, Tax. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.