Page 1, 11th December 1987

11th December 1987

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Page 1, 11th December 1987 — Poll tax threat hangs over orders
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Poll tax threat hangs over orders

by Peter Stanford NUNS and monks may still have to pay the Government's controversial poll tax despite assurances this week by the Department of the Environment that they would be treated as a "special case". Environment Secretary Nicholas Ridley and Local Government Minister Michael Howard have let it be known that they now accept that those in religious communities should be accorded a special treatment, but the exact form of that has not been set out, Philip Aylett, a Department of the Environment spokesperson
told the Catholic Herald this week.
"It has been acknowledged that nuns and monks are in a special position" he said. "They have no income, yet to a limited extent they make use of local services". He confirmed that "no decision has yet been taken", and outlined as alternatives either total exemption for religious orders, both active and contemplative, or some form of rebate that would allow them to pay a small part of the poll tax to be levied on all individuals over 18.
The bill to introduce the poll tax in England and Wales by 1994 was presented to the House of Commons by Michael Howard on Friday. It set out several categories of exemptions — prisoners, diplomats, members of visiting forces, the severely mentally handicapped, patients whose sole or main residence is in a hospital, and those living mainly in a residential institution such as a hospice or old people's home. Those engaged in full-time courses of eduction will be also be exempt.
The concession by the Department of the Environment over nuns and monks would seem to be a climb-down by the government from Mrs
Thatcher's stated position in a letter to Dr Graham Leonard, the Anglican Bishop of London in August when she informed him that "we have reached the view that there should be no special arrangements for charities as such in the new system".
A spokesman for Liberal MP David Alton who has led the campaign against the poll tax being applied to religious orders, said this week that his position remained unchanged. "We have said all along that exemption is the only logical course for religious orders providing a service to the community. It is crazy to ask them to divert
valuable resources to paying the poll tax", he told the Catholic Herald.
He stressed also that the campaign to modify the Government's controversial poll tax proposals would continue. Even if exemptions were conceded for religious communities, Catholic MP Mr Alton's office argued that the case of priests and vicars should be looked at. They will be subject to the poll tax and although in some cases of one Catholic priest living alone in a presbytery, the new tax may mark a reductica on the present rate bill, "it will create untold problems for Church of
England ministers with families" who will have to pay two or more poll taxes on a vicarage.
The General Synod of the Church of England, at its meeting earlier this year, mooted a figure of around £4 million in increased expenditure.
And even in schools run by religious orders, individual exemptions from the poll tax for members of the community may not protect them from increased costs if the Government plans go through. For the national business rate which will apply to some such establishments will go up dramatically, Mr Alton's office warned.




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