The Exective of the Warsaw Jewish Community is calling a Conference to be held here on Sunday, November 1st., of all the larger Jewish Communities in the country in order to consider what action to take in connection with the new Government Ordinance (reported in the J.T.A. Bulletin of the 14th. inst.), which fixes the contribution to be levied by the Jewish Communities on their members at 10 per cent. of the tax paid by the particular member to the Government, and in addition considerably restricts the scope of activity of the Jewish communities, confining them to purely religious functions, and excluding even the provision of charity from their competence.
A similar Conference of the larger Jewish Communities in Eastern Galicia has already been held at Lemberg, and has decided to present a petition to the Minister of Education and Public Worship, asking that the Ordinance should be with-drawn.
The practice hitherto has been for the various Jewish communities to set up special committees to estimate how much the members of the community can be called upon to pay in community dues. Under the new Ordinance, the communities will be deprived of the freedom to levy community dues at their own discretion, and will be obliged to impose a standard tax of 10 per cent. of whatever amount the Jewish citizen in question pays in taxes to the State. In the case of people who hold Government trading licences, the community dues will be 10 per cent. of the fee paid for the licence. People owning immovable property will pay 10 per cent. of the State tax on immovable property and professional people will pay 10 per cent. of their income tax. The amount of the community tax must not exceed 10 per cent. of the Government tax, and five zlotys is fixed in the Ordinance as the minimum amount to be charged as community tax. The Ordinance also has the effect of establishing the Jewish community tax as a compulsory tax obligatory on all members of the Jewish community.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
