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Eight per thousand


Eight per thousand (Italian: otto per mille) is an Italian law under which Italian taxpayers can choose to whom devolve a compulsory 8 ‰ = 0.8% ('eight per thousand') from their annual income tax return between an organised religion recognised by Italy or, alternatively, to a social assistance scheme run by the Italian State. This declaration is made on the IRE form. People are not required to declare a recipient; in that case the law stipulates that this undeclared amount be distributed among the normal recipients of such taxes in proportion to what they have already received from explicit declarations. In the period from 1990 to 2007 only 42.73%, on average, expressed a choice.

The relations between the Italian State and the religious confessions in its territory can be traced back to the Statuto Albertino of 1848, which applied first to the Kingdom of Sardinia and then to the Kingdom of Italy. Its first article declared the "Roman Catholic Apostolic religion" the only state religion and granted legal toleration to all other religious confessions then present.

Under the Lateran treaties of 1929, which were incorporated in the 1948 Constitution of the Italian Republic, the State paid a small monthly salary, called the congrua, to Catholic clergymen as compensation for the nationalization of Church properties at the time of the unification of Italy. This ended on 31 December 1986, with the entry into force, as a result of a 1984 agreement between the government and the Holy See of the "eight per thousand" system.

As of 2015 there are 12 possible beneficiaries of the tax:


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