Catholic church investigated over tax returns

The Catholic Church received 252,682,547 euros via tax returns in 2009, thanks to people making tax deductable donations to the institution by ticking the appropriate box on their forms.

According to data supplied by the Spanish Episcopal Conference (CEE) at a press conference today, the number of taxpayers making donations to the Catholic Church increased by 237,143 last year, and by 711,975 over the last two years.

The CEE spokesperson, Juan Antonio Martínez Camino, pointed out that a substantial proportion of tax returns are done on a joint basis (between 20 and 25%) so "we can estimate that last spring in the region of nine million people made donations to the Catholic Church".

The more than 252 million euros donated during the last tax year equates to an increase of 11 million euros compared with the previous year.

The proportion of tax returns on which there was a donation to the Catholic Church in the last tax year was 34.31%, a similar percentage to previous years according to Fernando Jiménez, the CEE's vice-secretary for Economic Affairs.

Camino used the press conference to thank all those who had made a contribution towards the Catholic Church on their latest tax return, but added that the church still depended on other forms of collaboration for its survival, saying that the weekly collections and subscriptions "remain absolutely indispensable".