Germany: of tax, church and salvation

By DOREEN NAWA

April 25, 2012 | Filed under: Features | Posted by: web editor

IT is eight to nine percent for ‘salvation’ in Germany and it is both legal and official.  As long as someone earns enough to sustain a life, then the person is obliged to pay eight to nine percent of their monthly income to their church as church tax.
It all starts when any Christian like the Lutherans, Protestants, Catholics get a new job. A form is signed to state which religion the new employee belongs to and this is not just for records’ sake.
It is done to give Government a leeway to deduct the eight to nine percent of the monthly salary. This deduction is later given to the church at the end of the year for various charitable projects.
This church tax is not only in Germany but other European countries and has helped Europe maintain its status of no vulnerable people on the streets like is the situation in Zambia.
“One of the legal requirements when you are given a new job is to state your religion and this is done for both company records and for the government for church tax purposes. I have been paying tax for the past three decades. I think and I do that because I am a Christian, I am a protestant,” said  Nea Matzen, a German journalist and  editor at  Die Tagesschau in Hamburg, Germany.
Ms Matzen said she feels obliged to contribute to the work that Christians are doing in Germany.
She said there are underprivileged people in Germany and this is why the churches are involved in looking after them.
“This is the reason why I contribute and I do not think of withdrawing from the church just because of this tax. We have orphans and the aged who are taken care of by the church despite their religious affiliations through the monies we pay,” she said.
To a few Germans, this is a good idea because the church is involved in numerous charitable works that need funding but to some, it is not.
According to Ms Matzen, the idea of church tax has contributed to dozens of people leaving the church for more money in their pockets. The best option to lower tax for Germans is by leaving the church.
The idea of paying church tax has shaken the church and seems to be contributing to large numbers of people being non- religious.
Whoever leaves the church is freed from this and no longer has to pay, but also no longer belongs to the church.
However, the church tax is looked at as a good move in Zambia if one considers the ever increasing number of the vulnerable on the streets.
Council of Churches in Zambia (CCZ) general secretary Suzanna Matale says that because tithe is voluntary, the church tax is a good move in financing the various projects that churches undertake in various countries worldwide.
“The idea of church tax is good because it helps the church to have funds to finance various projects it is involved in,” Reverend Matale said.
In Germany, Protestant and Catholic churches are denominations and legal statutory bodies. In the latter capacity, the churches have tax-raising powers. The state collects the tax and passes it on to the churches, receiving a payment for this service. The sole way of avoiding church tax is formally to leave one’s church.
According to information on the German Portal, Christianity is the largest religion in Germany with 67.07 percent of the population as of 2007.
The percentage is, however, slowly going down due to a significant number of adherents leaving the church. The second largest religion is Islam with four percent of the country’s population followed by Buddhism and Judaism.
During the last few decades, the two largest churches in Germany, Catholic and Protestant, have lost a significant number of adherents. The two religions are down to roughly 30 percent by the end of 2010.
One of the churches that are facing a noticeable withdrawal of membership is Catholic Church. It is facing a significant wave of members renouncing their official registration as Catholics.
Their departures are diminishing the institution’s significant coffers, long fed by taxes collected and allocated by the German state based on denominations’ registered numbers.
Many practising Catholics favour leaving the system intact because it pays the salaries of thousands of church employees and contributes to the work of aid agencies such as Caritas. Church authorities, of course, argue that abolishing the tax would “lead to further secularisation”.
According to Claus Hesseling, a German Catholic, the departures of hundreds of Catholics from the church have affected most charity work that the church is involved in.
“The money I pay goes to helping someone in need of a shirt, food or shelter, but lately there has been a noticeable loss of members in the Catholic Church within German. I read somewhere that over 300 Catholics a day are being “excommunicated” after they register their departures,” Mr Hesseling said.
The total deductions made from employees as church tax are worth about 5.6 billion euros annually.
A national debate has started in Germany about the legitimacy of the Church tax, which is levied on all those registered with the Catholic, Lutheran, Protestant and Old Catholic churches.
The debate follows a controversy of some who no longer wish to pay the additional eight or nine per cent tax, but also want to remain members of their respective churches.
Under the current system, a Christian who wants to opt out of paying the tax has to sign a form at the local town hall stating their intention to “leave the public body of the church”. When one does this it is as good as excommunicating themselves.
The church tax system does not leave out the foreigners working in Germany. Expatriates living in Germany can be subject to German taxes, especially if they have German source income.
According to Joshua Ewulo, a Nigerian doctor at Elisabeth Hospital in Berlin, the German tax system is similar to the structures in other Western countries.
“You pay income taxes throughout the year, usually with an employer deducting tax from each paycheck. Adjustments are then made at the end of the year for possible under- or over-payments. I wish they (Government and the church) can consider the consequences of people leaving the church,” Dr Ewulo said.
He said that eight to nine percent is just too much because it is not the only deduction made to one’s monthly income. In Germany even singles and couples pay tax. The deduction from one’s income is up to 45 percent, which is also too much.
Despite the controversy that surrounds the church tax in Germany, clergymen in Zambia look at it as a good move that can help finance charitable projects that churches are doing.
Independent Churches of Zambia board chairperson David Masupa says the church tax is a good idea and should be emulated.
“The idea of church tax is good and it can help us take care of the vulnerable that are all over our streets. Like the tax that Zambia Revenue Authority collects, it would be good if a separate account is created for tax collected from any building that is rented by the church organisation and later given back to the church,” Reverend Masupa said.
Despite the controversy surrounding the church tax in Germany and the rest of Europe, the church tax has helped take care of the vulnerable like the aged and the orphans.
The benefits are clear from the non-availability of vulnerable children on the streets in Germany and Europe as a whole.

FAO donates GIS equipment worth K2bn

By DOREEN NAWA

May 2, 2012 | Filed under: Local News | Posted by: web editor

THE Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) has donated Geographical Information System (GIS) equipment to the Ministry of Lands worth over K2 billion.
Besides the equipment, FAO has also donated seven Land Cruisers to the ministry. Two Land Cruisers have come from the United Nations Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (UN-REED) and the five vehicles were from the Integrated Land use Assessment (ILUA).
Currently, Zambia is implementing a programme called UN-REED projects, whose main objective is to protect forests.
The equipment includes 11 desktop computers, 11 printers, 10 scanners, 10 map plotters, one projector and two laptops worth over US$500,000 (over  K2.6 billion).
The equipment will be distributed to the 10 provinces under the forestry department.
Receiving the donation in Lusaka on Monday, Minister of Lands, Natural Resources and Environmental Protection Wylbur Simuusa said Government recognises the need to address the challenges that the forestry sector faces in protecting the resource.
Mr Simuusa said the GIS equipment will enable the multi-sectoral teams at provincial level to generate information and maps for planning purposes.
“You cannot do anything tangible without planning. The drivers of deforestation can only be effectively addressed with appropriate information for planning,” Mr Simuusa said.
According to the minister, trained forestry officers in all the  provinces will use the equipment and ensure that the right information is documented on forestry countrywide.
Commenting on the UN-REED programme, Mr Simuusa said the programme will help to enhance sustainable forest management by addressing the drivers of deforestation and putting in place effective forest management and monitoring systems.
The UN-REED is supporting Zambia to develop a national strategy to reduce deforestation.
And speaking earlier, FAO country representative Ad Spijkers said forestry management is vital to national development.
Mr Spijkers said all the natural resources wholly depend on good forest management.
“Zambia is very rich in terms of natural resources like water and land but the lifespan of these important resources depends on how well the forest is managed,” Mr Spijkers said.
Mr Spijkers pledged his organisation’s support to reducing deforestation in Zambia.

‘Children with disabilities need access to education’

By DOREEN NAWA

Disabled children at Maamba Mine Special Education School  demonstrate how they sleep every night. -Picture by DOREEN NAWA.

IT is a wish of every parent to have a ‘normal’ child (a child with no disability) once it is born, yet circumstances and nature at times take away that wish and most parents end up having physically challenged children.

No mother has an idea of whether the child she is carrying has a disability or not, the situation is unpredictable.

And once the child with a disability is born, the options on how to raise that child continues to narrow. In terms of the child’s access to education, the road gets narrower because of the limited schools that offer special education in Zambia.
Statistics show that Zambia has inadequate schools offering special education as compared to the population of the disabled children. Only 15 schools are offering special education in Zambia.
Among the few schools is Maamba Mine Special Education School in Southern Province. The school is one of the few schools offering special education to the physically challenged children in Zambia.
Maamba Mine Special Education School has 131 pupils and 87 of these are in boarding.
A recent visit by Southern Province Minister Obvious Mwaliteta and Sinazongwe UPND member of Parliament Richwell Siamunene was a blessing to the school following their promise to bring corporate companies in Maamba on board to render support to the school.
“The school has 131 pupils (84 boys and 47 girls) and out of these, 87 are in boarding. We have a lot of problems like teaching and learning material, infrastructure, as you can see, the school uses these same two classrooms which are also used as dormitories in the night. We have two dormitories and one ablution block with two toilets and two shower rooms,” deputy head teacher Innocent Milambo says.
Besides the infrastructure, teaching and learning challenges that the school is facing, other challenges include water and financial problems.
According to Mr Milambo, the school depends on the rationed water from Maamba Mines. “We need a borehole of our own here, currently we depend on water from the mines which is often rationed and we tend to be disadvantaged most of the times. It becomes difficult especially when the pupils mess themselves up,” he said.
The school handles visually and hearing-impaired, intellectually and physically handicapped children coming from within Maamba, Lusaka, Chipata, Livingstone, Mongu and other parts of the country.

“We urgently need help here. There are few teachers because of the teachers’ housing problems. We do not have enough mattresses. Two or three children share a bed. We have no industrial stove and we only have one stove we use, the normal stoves like those for household use and a brazier, which makes preparing meals for the 131 pupils a challenge,” Mr Milambo says.

One of the physically challenged children, Joseph Musanje, 18, a grade nine pupil at the school, says the difficulties in accommodation are just but one of the motivational factors to study hard and be selected to grade 10 next year.
“I come from Livingstone and I cannot walk because my spine developed a problem when I was young and it caused paralysis. Four pupils share a single bed, two facing the opposite direction each but I am not discouraged because I am not here to stay but to get an education and leave,” Joseph says.
For Joseph, being physically challenged is not the end of the world but an opportunity to change societal perception about people with disabilities.
“All I can say to the disabled and physically challenged children is that they should come out in the open if they are to be helped and for society to accept them. For me I am here to challenge society and change their thinking about us.
“I have been here for many years; I came here before I even knew how to write. For me it is a good place because we are given an opportunity to get educated. All I can wish is to have enough classrooms, dormitories, dining room and a kitchen,” Joseph says with a wide smile on his face.
Being the eldest in the family of six, Joseph wants to be a medical doctor so that he can serve the lives of many including those with disabilities.

Despite all the challenges, it takes a second glance to realise that the children are actually physically challenged as the smiles on their faces beat it all. They live as one family, play and pray together as one.

The school, which was opened in 1991 as Maamba Mine Basic School and following the ever-increasing number of children with disabilities, was delinked from the basic school and is now a stand-alone.

The school, which takes care of children aged between six and 20, has classes from grade one to nine with eight teachers of whom only six are trained.

 

 And Mr Mwaliteta says there is need for more trained teachers so that the school can run effectively, adding that it was sad to note that children were being neglected by society.

“Do not tell me Maamba has no corporate companies who can come to the rescue of these children. I know there is Zesco here and the Maamba Collieries Limited who can help this school through their corporate social responsibility. There are also not enough people to take care of the children and these institutions can help,” Mr Mwaliteta says.

And Mr Siamunene, the area MP, says most children suffer stigma from their parents and other family members, hence the need for Government and other stakeholders to recognise and care for them.
“It is very depressing to be here, that is why I brought the provincial minister to see for himself. This is the biggest challenge we have ahead of us as newly-elected leaders, we need to go out and sensitise the people out there that children with disabilities are human beings too and need to be loved and cared for just like other children. They need to be taken to school and should not be abandoned,” Mr Siamunene says.
The mixed understanding of disability in Zambia is quite a big challenge especially as it contributes to inefficient provision of education and other social services.
Like the situation at Maamba Mine Special Education School, it calls for a united, co-ordinated, and pragmatic action by all stakeholders, to expose disability perceptions, and freely share the universal perception if the country is to live by the ‘Education for All’ target.
As long as there is no action taken by all stakeholders, these members of the Zambian society (disabled children) will continue to live as third-class citizens.