3 ms·

That's an unexpected twist for modern Germany, officially registering people's faiths. And letting those faiths tax their members, is an interesting cherry on

• voakbasda 3y ago
  [flagged]
  • Arnt 3y ago
    It's not published. Germany publishes a lot of statistics. You can read up-to-date counts of how many people live in each city, how many people had their tonsils removed, how many people had breast enlargement, how many people pay income tax, how many people are church members. But you can't get this information about any single person. Not even the state can get that, even though most of that data is collected (and the statistics published) by public bodies. Cities can't reveal much to their encompassing states or the federal things, states can't reveal... and so on, and it's all handled very strictly. The federal minister responsible for fighting covid didn't even have a precise count of the number of people vaccinated. That's how strictly people's data are treated. If it's only a matter of time... don't hold your breath, this has been basically unchanged for seventy years.
• gerikson 3y ago
  Sweden does this as well. If you're a member of the Swedish Lutheran Church, an item is added to your tax bill. Other churches can ask their members to register as such with the tax authority and dues are collected via that route. If you're not a member (I left the church years ago) you still pay a small proportion to cover burial costs and the upkeep of historical church buildings.