In some European countries 'church taxes'—membership fees on behalf of religious organisations—still exist
Old Testament, priests are told to take a tenth of every believer’s crops as a tax to support the faith. In these latter days, they can outsource the job to the state. In many European countries, “church taxes”—levied on all registered members of religious organisations by governments—still exist.
The governments of ten countries across Europe administer membership fees on behalf of religious organisations. In two of these, Spain and Portugal, believers can opt to pay a portion of their income tax to their religion of choice. Six others run opt-out systems, whereby registered members of certain Christian churches are required to pay tax. In most of these, apostasy is the only way to get out of paying.
Some people are content to keep paying. A report in April found that in the six European countries that run opt-out systems, 68%-80% of people said that they pay the church tax. Not all of them are religious—in Sweden 32% of people reported paying despite being unaffiliated to any creed. Why would the godless choose to fund a faith? Many believe, often rightly, that churches help the needy. The sheer bother of bureaucracy probably stops others from opting out. And some find it emotionally difficult to make a formal declaration that they are leaving the faith in which they were brought up.
Nonetheless, many secular types wonder what business the state has in collecting membership dues for religious institutions. No other civil association is so lucky. Ironically, church taxes were first introduced to separate church and state by preventing the state from funding churches directly."Pay to pray, even if you don’t"
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