Church tax (Kirchensteuer)

Church tax (Kirchensteuer) is levied by “recognized” churches
in Germany that have been granted the right to impose a tax on
their members. Recognized churches are inter alia the Roman
Catholic Church (römisch-katholische Kirche), the German
Protestant-Lutheran Church (evangelisch-lutherische Kirche), the
Reformed Church (reformierte Kirche), and Jewish parishes (jü-
dische Kultusgemeinden).

It does not apply to foreign churches.
Depending on the German Federal State of residence, the tax
amounts to 8% or 9% of the wage tax withheld and is remitted
by the employer to the local tax offce or the church tax offce.
For income not subject to wage tax withholding, quarterly pre-
payments and fnal payments are made along with the relevant
income tax payments. In this case, the church tax is calculated
on the assessed income tax (or on the prepayments). Church
tax is a deductible (special) expense for income tax purposes.

Foreign employees working in Germany are subject to church tax
if they are members of the Roman Catholic Church, since this
church defnes itself as a worldwide church.