Eight per thousand is an Italian law under which Italian taxpayers devolve a compulsory 8 ‰ = 0.8% from their annual income tax return to an organised religion recognised by Italy or, alternatively, to a social assistance scheme run by the Italian State. On the IRE form, people optionally declare a recipient. If they do not, the law stipulates that this undeclared amount be distributed among the normal recipients of such taxes in proportion to what they have already received from explicit declarations. In the period from 1990 to 2007, 42.7% expressed a choice, on average. A similar scheme has been introduced in 2006 to fund with five per thousand entities that carry out socially relevant activities.
History
The relations between the Italian State and the religious confessions in its territory can be traced back to the Statuto Albertino of 1848, which applied first to the Kingdom of Sardinia and then to the Kingdom of Italy. Its first article declared the "Roman Catholic Apostolic religion" the only state religion and granted legal toleration to all other religious confessions then present. Under the Lateran treaties of 1929, which were incorporated in the 1948 Constitution of the Italian Republic, the State paid a small monthly salary, called the congrua, to Catholic clergymen as compensation for the nationalization of Church properties at the time of the unification of Italy. This ended on 31 December 1986, with the entry into force, as a result of a 1984 agreement between the government and the Holy See of the "eight per thousand" system.
Current status
As of 2015 there are 12 possible beneficiaries of the tax:
Although the 1985 law on the matter declared that the state's portion of the proceeds was to be devoted to extraordinary expenses, such as world hunger, natural disasters and refugees, since 2004 a large proportion is employed for general purposes. In 2004, €80 million out of a total of about €100 million were thus employed, leading to criticism of the fact that part of it was used to finance the Italian military mission in Iraq. Because of its financial situation in 2011, the government decided to utilize the entire sum of about €145 million for purposes other than those indicated in the 1985 law: for instance, €57,277,063 were spent on improving the prison infrastructure. The purposes for which the religious groups may use their portions are laid down in the agreements entered into with the government. In the case of the Catholic Church, the purposes are specified in article 48 of the 1985 law: "worship needs of the people, support of the clergy, charitable activities in favour of Italian society and the Third World". Each year the Italian Episcopal Conference publishes the proportions it assigns under various headings. Thus at its meeting in May 2012 it approved the following distribution :
1,148,076 Total amount received
479,226 Worship and pastoral work
*156,000 To the dioceses
*190,000 Buildings for worship
**125,000 New buildings for worship
**65,000 Safeguarding cultural property of the Church
50,000 Reserve for future use for worship, pastoral work and charity
The financial support for the clergy brings their salary up to a certain level, such as €852.93 a month for a priest at the beginning of his service, and €1,308.57 a month for a bishop at the maximum of his biennial increments.
Choices expressed by taxpayers
For the first fifteen years of the system there was a gradual increase of the percentage of those who chose their contributions to go to the Catholic Church and a corresponding diminution of those who chose the State as beneficiary. Of those who exercised a choice, 76.17% opted for the Catholic Church in 1990, increasing to 89.81% in 2004 and falling to 86.05% in 2006 and 85.01% in 2007. Since in 2007, for instance, only 43.50% of those who declared their incomes expressed a choice, those who did indicate the Catholic Church as beneficiary were less than 37% of the taxpayers, a figure much lower than the proportion of Italians who declare themselves Catholics, which corresponded rather to the proportion opting for the Church among those who did indicate a choice. Declarations in favour of the State, which were 22.31% in 1990, dropped to their lowest ever level of 7.60% in 2005, recovering later and reaching 11.95% in 2007. The eight-per-thousand tax has significantly helped the Piedmontese Waldensians. A Protestant community whose origins predate the Reformation, the Waldensians have only about 25,000 enlisted members but about 412,000 Italians support them and their charitable works.
