If you leave a religious community that collects church taxes, under the church tax laws of the federal states, you are no longer required to pay church tax as a surcharge on income tax or payroll tax (payroll church tax). Consequently, your employer is no longer required to withhold church tax from your wages in addition to payroll tax with each paycheck and remit it to the tax office. The process for ceasing the withholding of payroll church tax is largely automated. Therefore, once you have declared your withdrawal, you generally do not need to take any further action to fulfill your obligation to pay church tax.

The procedure for declaring withdrawal from the church—and the specific agency to which it must be submitted—varies by state law. Church membership is recorded by the state registration authorities and can only be changed through them. The tax authorities have no influence over this. This is important, for example, if the authorities have incorrect data on file.

The registration authorities notify the Federal Central Tax Office (BZSt) of changes in church membership and the corresponding date. The BZSt stores the electronic payroll tax withholding characteristics (ELStAM) in a database. The stored data also includes characteristics for church tax withholding.

The BZSt makes the ELStAM available to employers for automated retrieval free of charge. The ELStAM are decisive for the employer’s withholding of church tax through the tax withholding procedure; that is, the employer is bound by them and does not need to verify whether church tax is due.