Priests of legally confirmed beliefs as witness-es in tax proceedings

Abstract

The subject-matter of the paper involves issues related to the use of evidence from hearing a priest as a witness in jurisdiction tax proceedings by public administration bodies. The author emphasizes that pursuant to Article 193 point 3 of the Tax Ordinance Act priests of legally confirmed religions may not witness on facts that are subject to the seal of confession. However, other information obtained by the priest – under the broadly understood “spiritual care” – is not subject to the above absolute evidentiary prohibition. This is why the author brings in a de lege ferenda postulate to introduce to Article 195 point 3 of the Tax Ordinance Act, as modelled on i.a. the 1934 Tax Ordinance Act, the so-called “spiritual/pastoral confidentiality” which would relate to all information obtained by the clergy of legally confirmed beliefs from a faithful when performing their “pastoral functions”, but not stricte related to confession only.

Keywords

• priest
• witness
• confession
• tax proceedings
• tax authority
• tax procedure