Israel Hayom newspaper on Friday said that the Israeli Jerusalem municipality is planning to earn 650 million shekels ($189 million) by imposing additional taxes on properties owned by churches and the UN in Occupied Jerusalem.
The Hebrew newspaper explained that the new decision will not be applied to places of worship because they are excluded from the property tax under Israeli law. The target of the new taxes are properties used for purposes other than worship.
In an attempt to justify this move the Israeli municipality said that the financial losses it has suffered over the past years due to the exemption of Jerusalem’s church and UN properties from taxes amount to one billion shekels.
The municipality asked the state to compensate it financially for the uncollected funds or allow it to collect them according to the law.
The Israeli-controlled Jerusalem municipality last week froze bank accounts of several churches in the holy city allegedly due to accumulated debts.
