"The X box is fiscal democracy": the bishops deny that the State maintains them

“It is not true that the Spanish State maintains the Catholic Church. If no citizen marked the X in the income statement for a year, what would be transferred would be zero euros. We are not in the German system, where there is a religious tax. Here, what is done is to ask the taxpayers if they want a part to go to that religious purpose. But there is nothing for maintenance, the only thing the State does is provide this collection service”. The general secretary of the Spanish Episcopal Conference (CEE), César García Magán, defends with a point of warrior ardor what he calls “exercise of fiscal democracy”, which means asking Spaniards every year where they want a percentage of their taxes, in this case 0.7%, through the personal income tax return.

Because, according to what the auxiliary bishop of Toledo also points out to El Confidencial, whether or not taxpayers mark the X box for the Catholic Church in their declaration, “if it is not an annual referendum, it is a true survey based on to which the Church submits each year, something that other social, political and other spheres do not carry out, so that deep down there is a positive assessment of what the Church's action is in all its breadth, even by people who are not believers, but who value that performance”. “If that criterion,” he adds, “were applied to other items in our budgets that are going to subsidize or allocate that money to institutions or programs that may be more or less debatable, I don't know —if they did that kind of annual referendum— how much for percent of taxpayers would tag those grants to those programs…”.

The number three of the EEC puffs out his chest because the data supports them. In the 2022 income campaign, corresponding to the 2021 fiscal year, 8.5 million Spaniards checked the box for the Church (individual and joint returns), which represents 31.29% of those submitted, and with 84,201 new statements in favor of the institution, twice as many as the previous year, where the effects of the pandemic were felt.

And, with a view to the 2023 financial year, which ends at the end of this month of June, optimism remains after that year in which the coronavirus forced the closure of all the temples, without the Church's assistance work diminishing, as also evidenced by the 2021 Activity Report, which is required to present to account for the destination of the funds it receives. Some funds that in 2021 amounted to 320,723,062 euros, which represents an increase of 8.5% and that offers, on average, the data that the contribution that the Church receives from each taxpayer who marks the X is 37, 73 euro.

The abuse scandal does not take its toll

This is a not inconsiderable percentage, which seems to be unaffected by the erosion caused to the Church's image by the sexual abuse scandal or by the campaigns that advocate repealing a financing system that they consider maintains “privileges”. of the institution. García Magán denies the greatest. “That approach is not true, because this system does not give anything directly to the Catholic Church. What it does is a collection service of what citizens freely, using their will, deem appropriate, but they give exactly what the citizen determines. And it is a system that is perfectly compatible with a non-denominational regime, and let us not forget that the current Constitution of 1978 speaks of relations of cooperation between the Spanish State and the Catholic Church and other confessions.. In other words, our current constitutional system is not a purely secular separation system like the French one, as some claim, but rather like that of Italy.”.

And remember that, within this “fiscal democracy”, the taxpayer, in addition to the box for the Church, can also choose to check the box for activities of social interest (which is intended for NGOs) or even both options, as specified also in its promotional campaigns the EEC. “Or not mark any and let the State keep 0.7%,” says García Magán.

The tax allocation represents 22% of the financing of the 70 dioceses that make up the Church in Spain, out of a total budget that, in 2021, amounted to 1,142,775,931 euros, according to data from the Activities Report. The rest comes from the contributions of the faithful, who with 343.07 (30%) million euros, almost 11% more, seem to have overcome the downturn caused by the closure of the temples due to the pandemic and that it could not be pass the brush; 109 million come from income from assets and other activities (10%); and 383 million other current income (34%), to which are added 50.9 million extraordinary income (4%)..

The secretary of the Spanish Episcopate acknowledges that “the EEC is working hard, in collaboration with the dioceses”, to achieve self-financing, an issue to which it committed itself years ago when the current system was articulated, endorsed by the agreements between the Holy See and the Spanish State of 1979, and improved during the Government of José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, because, as is common doctrine in Añastro, the bishops negotiate better with PSOE governments. “Is it necessary to increase [the efforts for self-financing]? Without a doubt, we must make our faithful aware that each one has to maintain that collaboration, that co-responsibility with their Church, in this case, with the Catholic. This is what happens in parishes, where the faithful who come to them are the ones who have to commit to supporting it, because they are the ones who receive pastoral, charitable care, etc.”.

An assistance work that is also reported in the aforementioned Report and that helps them to vindicate themselves before those who repeatedly question whether they receive 0.7%. “In moments of difficulty for families to make ends meet, in sickness, in old age, in mental health problems, in an increase in suicides among the young population, the Church appears there”, highlights the Report, in whose presentation it was stressed that “the Church represents a fundamental support for the State, since, in the last three years, the 9,000 Church centers have attended an average of four million people in situations of exclusion and material need, women victims of trafficking and violence, family support centers, care for the prison population, the sick or the elderly”.

4,300 million savings to the State

Likewise, it is emphasized that, in the educational sphere, the more than 2,400 Catholic centers chosen by more than 1.5 million families represent savings to the State of more than 4,300 million euros per year; or that, on a cultural level, the heritage of the Church, with more than 3,100 assets of cultural interest, has a positive impact of 3% on Spain's GDP and represents an economic impact of 22,620 million euros, generating 225,000 direct and indirect jobs.

For all this, the secretary claims the relevance of the tax allocation system and denies that there is a “free bar” of financing for religions, criticizes what was heard a few weeks ago when the Sánchez government signed an agreement to equalize the taxation of all confessions with well-known roots in Spain. “The Constitution still in force —García Magán underlines the validity of the magna carta in all its apostilles— maintains a regime of collaboration with the Catholic Church and other religious denominations. And, to change that, it would be necessary to go to a constitutional reform “. There he leaves it.