Eight per thousand, or otto per mille, is an Italian law under which Italian taxpayers can choose to whom devolve a compulsory 8 ‰ = 0.8 % ('eight per thousand') from their annual income tax return between an organized religion recognised by Italy or, alternatively, to a social assistance scheme run by the Italian State. This declaration is made on the IRPEF form. People are not required to declare a recipient; in that case the law stipulates that this undeclared amount be distributed among the normal recipients of such taxes in proportion to what they have already received from explicit declarations. For this reason, the Catholic Church receives 87% of the proceedings with only 34% of people explicitly indicating so; 60% of people does not declare a destination for such money at all. The Church of Assemblies of God in Italy refuses to benefit from the undeclared portion.

Originally the Italian government of Benito Mussolini, under the Lateran treaties of 1929 with the Holy See, paid a monthly salary to Catholic clergymen. This money was meant as a compensation for the nationalization of Church properties after the unification of Italy. This salary was called the congrua. The eight per thousand law was created as a result of an agreement, in 1984, between the Italian government and the Holy See.

A per mil, per mille, or per mill (rarely spelled permil or permille) (Latin, literally meaning 'for (every) thousand') is a tenth of a percent or one part per thousand. It is written with U+2030 ‰ per mille sign (HTML: ‰ ‰), which looks like a percent sign (%) with an extra zero at the end. It can be seen as a stylized form of the three zeros in the denominator although it originates from an alteration of the percent sign.

The term is so rarely used in English that major dictionaries do not agree on the spelling or pronunciation (even within one kind of English) and often do not list the other variants or do not even have an entry (for example Chambers, Longman, and Macmillan). The term is very common in most other languages, for example in expressing blood alcohol content, which is always expressed in percent in English-speaking countries.

A per mil is defined as:

A per mil should not be confused with ppm (commonly pronounced "parts per million" in the United States). A measurement in ppm means parts per million, and has as its denominator 1,000,000 and not 1,000.

Ketevan "Katie" Melua /ˈmɛluːə/ (Georgian: ქეთევან "ქეთი" მელუა  listen (help·info); born 16 September 1984) is a Georgian-born British singer, songwriter and musician. She moved to Northern Ireland at the age of eight and then to England at fourteen. Melua is signed to the small Dramatico record label, under the management of composer Mike Batt, and made her musical debut in 2003. In 2006, she was the United Kingdom's best-selling female artist and Europe's highest selling European female artist.

In November 2003, at the age of nineteen, Melua released her first album, Call off the Search, which reached the top of the United Kingdom album charts and sold 1.8 million copies in its first five months of release. Her second album, Piece by Piece, was released in September 2005 and to date^[update] has gone platinum four times. Melua released her third studio album Pictures in October 2007.

According to the Sunday Times Rich List 2008, Melua has a fortune of £18 million, making her the seventh richest British musician under thirty. It was reported in 2009 that she may have lost millions as a result of the global economic downturn. As of May 2011 the singer could have a £12m fortune and she came second in the under 30 rich list.