If you join or rejoin a religious community that collects taxes, you must pay church tax in accordance with the church tax laws of the federal states, specifically as a surcharge on income tax or payroll tax (payroll church tax). Therefore, with each payroll payment, the employer must withhold not only income tax but also, on a regular basis, church tax from the employee’s wages and remit it to the tax office. The process for deducting payroll church tax is largely automated. Therefore, once you have declared your membership, you generally do not need to take any further action to fulfill your church tax obligations.

The religious communities themselves determine how and with which authority membership in the church must be declared. 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 wage tax deduction codes (ELStAM) in a database. The stored data also includes codes 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 the employee is subject to church tax.