Mandatory payment of six years worth of back-dated property taxes will force the closure of all the Catholic schools in a region of northern Italy, according to an archbishop who has written to the prime minister to urge him to intervene.
Ten parishes in the city of Ferrara, in the Emilia-Romagna region of Italy, received notices from the city government asking them to calculate their property taxes, known as the ‘imposta municipale propria’ (IMU) back to 2010, and then to pay them, say reports. An official in the archdiocese has estimated that the total cost, if imposed, would be in excess of €110,000.
Archbishop Luigi Negri of Ferrara-Comacchio has written to Italian Prime Minister, Matteo Renzi (pictured with Pope Francis above), asking him to reverse the edict from Ferrara’s mayor or the archdiocese will be forced to close all its private schools. The archdiocese doesn’t have the money to pay the tax bill, and insisting on payment will come at the expense of the children, writes Archbishop Negri in the letter.
The Archbishop made reference to a similar case in the city of Livorno in Tuscany, where lower courts barred the city’s attempt to collect the property taxes on the basis that schools were non-profit. This was later overruled by the Italian Supreme court, who held that the collection of tuition fees by schools made them a commercial enterprise.
Archbishop Negri called on Mr Renzi to make Catholic Schools exempt from the property tax with “norms that do not leave margins for unfavourable interpretations”. Italian observers believe that if the Archdiocese of Ferrara is compelled to either pay the taxes or close the schools, it could have a ripple effect across the country, with other Catholic entities and non-profit operations that collect some form of revenue hit with back-dated tax bills.
The Catholic Church in Italy has traditionally enjoyed a broad exemption from property taxes. Italy began tightening those exemptions in 2013, due to pressure from the European Union, but the application of the new property tax requirements remains vague and often determined on an ad-hoc basis at regional and municipal levels.
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