Amendment of the church tax deduction when leaving the church
If you leave a tax-leviing religious community, the church tax laws of the federal states do not require you to pay church tax as a surcharge on income or wage tax (wage church tax). The employer therefore no longer has to withhold church tax from the employee's salary and pay it to the tax office in addition to wage tax and pay it to the tax office every time his salary is paid. The corresponding procedure for the abolition of the deduction of wage church tax is largely automated. As a rule, you do not have to do anything else after you have declared your resignation in order to get rid of your obligation to pay church tax.
How and at which point the resignation from the church is to be declared is regulated differently by state law. Church affiliation is recorded by the registration authorities of the federal states and can only be changed by them. The tax authorities have no influence on this. This is important, for example, if the authorities have incorrect data.
The registration authorities inform the Federal Central Tax Office (BZSt) of changes in church affiliation and the corresponding date. The BZSt stores the electronic wage tax deduction characteristics (ELStAM) in a database. The stored data also includes features for church tax deduction.
The BZSt provides the ELStAM to the employer for free automated retrieval. For the withholding of church tax in the tax deduction procedure by the employer, the ELStAM are decisive, i.e. the employer is bound by them and does not need to examine the question of church tax liability.
Process flow
They make a declaration of resignation from the church to the competent authority under state law.
- This office informs the respective registration authority, which in turn transmits the resignation and the date of resignation to the tax authorities.
- Therefore, no application or notification to the tax office is required.
Requirements
- Declaration of resignation from the church to the authority responsible for this under the respective state law
Which documents are required?
You do not need to submit any documents.
What are the fees?
Whether and to what extent fees are incurred for the withdrawal depends on the fee schedules of the competent authority in the respective federal state. The tax authorities do not charge any fees.
Legal basis
Technically approved by
Federal Ministry of Finance
Professionally released on
31.10.2021
Author
The text was automatically translated based on the German content.
