Religion – Weltanschauung – Recht [ RWR ]

Under German law, some churches and religious societies are entitled to levy a church tax and/or fee on their members. The five applicants complained that, when such taxes or fees were calculated and levied on the basis of the joint income of both the applicant and their spouse, it violated their right to freedom of religion. In particular, they complained variously of being obliged to pay for their spouse’s special church fee when they themselves were not a member of the church; of requiring the financial assistance of their spouse to pay their own special church fee, making them dependant on their spouse for their freedom of religion; or of being obliged to pay an unfairly high church tax, as it had been calculated taking their spouse’s income into account. Some applicants also complained that the taxes or fees had been discriminatory. Den Rest des Beitrags lesen

The applicants, Jörg Max Klein, Fritz Nussbaum, Philip Redeker and Heike Redeker, and Uta Gloeckner, were born in 1964, 1935, 1963, 1965, and 1963 respectively and live in Heidelberg, Sulzbach-Rosenberg, Gera, and Nuremberg (Germany). The case concerns applications by five German nationals about the levying of church taxes or special church fees. Den Rest des Beitrags lesen