As Italians grit their teeth against the coming economic austerity
measures, the Catholic Church is being forced to defend the
multibillion-euro tax breaks it enjoys on 100,000 properties.
Mario Staderini, leader of the Radical Italians party, has led the
latest protests by proposing a parliamentary measure to repeal the
Vatican's exemption from the ICI property tax.
Campaigners say the allowance, along with other ecclesiastical tax
benefits, robs the Italian treasury of €3 billion ($5.2 billion) a year.
Such a sum, they say, is unacceptable at a time when Italians are being
forced to pay more for basic healthcare, as well as seeing cuts to
local services and pensions, as ministers seek to slash public spending
to calm financial markets.
Staderini said: "Nobody wants to pay their ICI tax to help fund places
of worship, and as such they want to abolish the allowance for what are
commercial activities carried out by the church authorities."
The Church avoids paying tax on about 100,000 properties, classed as
non-commercial, including 8779 schools, 26,300 ecclesiastical structures
and 4714 hospitals and clinics.
The crux of the controversy is whether church-run businesses should be
considered as commercial enterprises and liable to taxation.
European Union authorities are probing the tax exemption, introduced in
2005 - to much criticism from humanist and secularist organisations - by
the former centre-right Government of the Prime Minister Silvio
Berlusconi.
Last October, the Competition Commissioner Joaquin Almunia said the EC
suspected the exemption amounted to state aid that was at odds with
European Union law.
Evidence of popular support for Staderini's demands comes from campaigns
on Facebook, including one page with nearly 100,000 adherents, that
simply says: "Vatican, you pay for the austerity cuts."