Webcast Live Series: Church and Finance - Cooperation in Church Activities

Church activities are diverse and take place regionally in different places - church services, day care centres, care and much more. Behind every church activity is an ecclesiastical legal entity. This can be a church congregation, a church association, a church foundation or another non-profit organisation. Often these cooperate with each other.

For example, the "Meals on Wheels" service is partly provided jointly by the Catholic and Protestant parishes. The administrations of church youth associations are also often supported by a diocese or a regional church in the areas of IT, accounting and bookkeeping.

In the case of a cooperation of church legal entities - regardless of whether it is intra-church, ecumenical or of another kind - a new legal entity can come into being under certain circumstances. Depending on the form, this can be a company, a community or an association. This has consequences. For the cooperation results in a variety of possibilities, but also obligations, among other things in the areas of law, taxes, social security and labour law. And it can also have undesirable effects, such as the unlimited liability of the cooperating legal entities in a civil law partnership (GbR).

At the 3rd Webcast Live "Church and Finance", our experts took a closer look at this multi-faceted topic. 140 participants listened to their explanations on forms of cooperation and the best possible tax arrangements. In addition, questions submitted in advance and raised during the event were answered.

Overall, this Webcast Live was once again characterised by lively discussion among the professional audience. In the end, it was clear: "Even though there are many challenges in structuring cooperations, they are indispensable for churches in order to fulfil their spiritual and social tasks," summarised KPMG expert Thorsten Helm.

In the 4th KPMG Webcast Live "Church and Finance" on the topic of "Cooperations in church activities - strategic and organisational aspects", many practical issues in the conception and implementation of cooperations were highlighted.