Convents 'should pay taxes,' says Pope Francis

Pope Francis has said that convents functioning as hotels should start to pay their taxes

 

VATICAN CITY — Pope Francis has revealed that if convents are functioning as hotels, that they should start paying taxes. 

 

  “A religious convent is exempt from taxes, but if it functions as a hotel, then it should pay taxes, otherwise the business is not sound,” the pontiff said in an interview with the Portuguese broadcasting station Radio Renascena. 

 

  “There are convents that are nearly empty” the pope recalled “and also there may be the temptation of the money gods. Some congregations say that now that a convent is empty, let’s make it a hotel. In this way, we can start to accommodate people, and keep earning money. All is well, provided that we pay this tax.”

 

  According to the decree of the Ministry of the Economy signed by Padoan (Minister of Economy and Finances of Italy) on June 26 2014, organised spaces that are accommodation facilities “not purely for commercial use”, like the rooms in convents, may be exempt from property taxes.

 

  “The agreement to pay taxes like everyone else is perhaps the best answer to our complaints of tax evasion and avoidance on the part of the holiday homes managed by authorities in the Roman clergy.” This was written by Riccardo Magi, president of the Italian Radicals and Alessandro Capriccioli, Secretary of the Roman Radicals, according to whom “as much as 40 percent of the 300 hotel facilities run by religious congregations (with the amenities and price worthy of a 4-star hotel) never pay the city municipal taxes (IMU), and another 20 percent pay irregularly. A total of almost 20 million euros of taxes are never paid.”

 

  This decision will resonate particularly strongly with the Italian Socialist Party, as this has been their stance for many years. On Facebook, the Deputy Minister of Infrastucture and secretary of the Socialist Party, Riccardo Nencini, supported this, by saying “the words used by Francis are the same words, the same arguments that the Socialists have been using for the last ten years.”