More money than God

“HOW can we face God if we collect taxes from religious men?” asked the deputy speaker of South Korea’s national assembly. The Christian Council of Korea, the country’s largest Protestant lobby, threatened to launch campaigns at election time against legislators who supported the bill. Clerical pressure has for decades stalled a vote on a tax. But on December 2nd MPs agreed to impose one on the income of religious leaders from 2018.

South Korea is the only advanced country that exempts its clergy from all taxation. Still, many Buddhist monks and Protestant pastors pay dues voluntarily on their personal incomes; all Catholic priests have done so since 1994. In September the Presbyterians said that they would join them. Priests who support the new tax say it is only fair: everyone is doing God’s work, whether reverend or farmer. But others scorn the idea. They say taxes reduce the godly work of the clergy to mere labour.