Abstract Disaffiliation indicates a major future challenge to the Roman Catholic and Protestant churches in Germany, particularly regarding the church tax. This article addresses that issue by first describing the particular German context of disaffiliation. It then summarises previous research, which indicates that the church tax is the trigger to leave the church. An analysis of recent data reveals that the portion of church members is lowest in those income classes that have to pay an above average amount of church tax. Moreover, the likelihood to resign from church membership is highest when the individual begins his or her first paid job. Both findings ascribe church tax a more powerful role in the process of disaffiliation than previous research.

中文翻译：

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教会税重要吗？

摘要 脱离关系表明德国的罗马天主教和新教教会未来面临重大挑战，特别是在教会税方面。本文通过首先描述德国的特殊背景来解决这个问题。然后总结了之前的研究，表明教会税是离开教会的触发因素。对最近数据的分析表明，在那些必须支付高于平均水平的教会税的收入阶层中，教会成员的比例最低。此外，当个人开始他或她的第一份带薪工作时，辞去教会成员资格的可能性最高。这两个发现都认为教会税在脱离关系的过程中比以前的研究发挥了更强大的作用。