Taxing Virtue

Well, I've heard of sin taxes, but the Germans have now decided to tax virtue: you have no right to join a church unless you pay the church tax. Perhaps this was adopted on the theory that society ought to tax things it wants less of, like cigarette smoking and greenhouse gases. In France, however, a church tax wouldn't net much revenue. A tax on unauthorized use of the imperfect of the subjunctive might do better.