Generally, by law in Germany, you as a employer have to go and budget/pay the social pension tax for employees. If you fail in this obligation....the authorities come after you.
So, the story comes today over 'Sozialbeitrage' (pension tax) not being paid by the Catholic Church of Freiburg.
The amount being suggested? A staggering 160 million Euro.
It's not just years being talked about....it's decades.
The Ordinariat (the regional administration) basically says that a local public prosecutor is now involved. The folks affected? Priests, church employees (cleaning people, secretaries, and even gardeners).
This lays across a thousand Catholic Churches in the state of Baden-Württemberg.
What went wrong? Somewhere about four years ago, there was a changeover of personnel, and the new folks brought in an audit to ensure that everything they did....was transparent. Well, the audit laid out this issue. It would appear that this goes back decades, and simply a decision made by someone in charge that they weren't required to make this payment. The Ordinariat? Well, you would think that they'd do a yearly review and find this problem. It should have popped up two decades ago.
As for the money? The Catholic Church says that they've set aside the money and when the review is done....they will pay what is owed. My guess is that no penalty will be put upon them. As for them having 160-million Euro laying around? I guess they've got the money.
But this brings up this one odd topic with me.....how many more episodes like this....are sitting out there? Could there be a thousand business fronts who are failing to pay the social pension tax? Could there be billions in uncollected taxes sitting out there?
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