A Communist Party plan to tax the compensation the state must pay religious groups in the Czech Republic is upsetting church leaders.
Seventeen religious denominations – Christian and Jewish – are legally entitled to recover or be compensated for assets confiscated during the post-World War II Cold War.
As the largest denomination, the Catholic church is entitled to receive up to 80 percent of the compensation package.
The assets are valued at about 2.9 billion euros. They include about 40,000 hectares of land, a UNESCO-listed Baroque church, a castle and art works.
The religious groups are also entitled to financial compensation worth 59 billion koruna (about US$2.7 billion) for assets that can’t be returned in kind.
The Party says the compensation is “excessive” and has presented a bill for it to be taxed at 19 percent from next year.
The bill is considered likely to pass because of the leverage the Party has with the new minority government of populist Prime Minister Andrej Babis.
Babis relied on the Party’s backing to win a confidence vote last week.
“It boggles the imagination,” said Father Stanislav Pribyl, the secretary general of the Czech Roman Catholic Bishops’ Conference.
“How can you impose a tax on this (compensation)? We are the creditor and the state is the debtor here!”
Believers are a minority in the Czech Republic’s 10.6 million population.
About eight-and-a-half million people identified as non-believers left the religion column empty in the 2011 census.
Under communism, the Catholic church and others suffered severe persecution including the confiscation of property and the imprisonment, torture and killing of priests.
“The Communists have never cut themselves off from their past, they caused economic damage, ruined lives and people’s health,” Pribyl says.
“If these people now want to slap a tax on the compensation, which is a partial remedy for all that injustice, it’s a scandal.”
Communist lawmaker Vladimir Konicek, who is leading the tax bill, says “What is scandalous is the amount.
“In the end, they may get the payment and, if the court says yes, the assets too. So, they’ll get it twice.”
Source:
- CEBY Daily News
- La Croix
- Image: CzechTourism