After several years of scandal in which the Catholic Church has faced allegations of financial impropriety, pedophile priests and rumours of plots to kill the Pope, the Vatican is now facing a new €600m-a-year tax bill as Rome seeks to head off European Commission censure over controversial property tax breaks enjoyed by the Church.
As the EC heads closer to officially condemning the fiscal perks enjoyed by the Catholic Church and introduced by the Berlusconi administration, Prime Minister Mario Monti has written to the Competition Commissioner, Joaquin Almunia, saying that the Vatican will resume property tax, or Ici, payments.
This story was posted over at the independent.co.uk website yesterday...and I thank Australian reader Wesley Legrand for sharing it with us. The link is here.
