The Austrian Inheritance and Gift Tax Act 1955 provided that certain donations to religious institutions were exempt from inheritance and gift tax. However the Austrian Jehovah’s Witnesses were not included in the list of qualifying institutions until 2009 after they had begun proceedings in the ECHR. In Jehovahs Zeugen in Österreich v Austria (ECHR Case 27540/05) the ECHR accepted the appellants’ contention that this had been a breach of Article 14 of the European Convention on Human Rights.
Why it matters: The ECHR accepted the Jehovah’s Witnesses’ contention that by originally excluding them from the list of religious institutions qualifying for exemption from inheritance and gift tax the Austrian legislature had breached Article 14 of the European Convention on Human Rights (which prohibits discrimination based on religion).
