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'We the People' Petition To Revoke Scientology's Tax Exempt Status
An anonymous reader writes: There has been a lot of interest in the activities of the Church of Scientology recently, especially since the release of Alex Gibney's documentary Going Clear. A petition against tax-exempt status for Scientology has been started on the U.S. White House petition website. If it receives more than 100,000 signatures, it will qualify for an official White House response. Even Slashdot has had its own run-ins with Scientology in the past — one of many internet sites to face legal threats from the Church. Has the time come for Scientology go "clear?"
Has the government - beyond just the white house - been inclined to revoke any tax exempt statuses in memory? I don't recall a single one. Just because Scientology has only a slightly higher public approval rate than ebola doesn't mean the government is likely to take a stand against them.
Besides, even if it was revoked, they would likely just find a really good accountant / lawyer team and end up paying the same amount (or less) in taxes. Last year Prudential insurance paid no corporate income tax and received a $106 million rebate. Time Warner cable paid no taxes on $4.3B in profit, CBS no taxes on $1.8B. Scientology could probably do better on their taxes by registering as a corporation anyways.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
The question, I believe, is whether the CoS really is a belief organization, or a financial scam. Whether the followers have a belief or not is not something we can or should question, but we can certainly question the CoS.
Anyhow, I am all for all religious organizations losing their tax free status. It's built on a religious statement from the bible, that one should give god what belongs to god and the emperor what belongs to the emperor. Being that the law is religious based, it breaches the separation of state and church, and should be found unconstitutional.
As long as there is a tax exemption for religion -any religion- picking on one is unfair and bordering in bigotry. We the people are not (or should not) in the business of telling people what is or isn't a religion or what to believe or not as long as it aligns with the society accepted rules (i.e. the law)
That said, I would support removing the blanket tax exemption for ALL religions activities and instead give it to specific activities benefiting the community as long as it doesn't discriminate on others based on their faith.
My question here would be, how are we deciding what is or is not a religion? You have a bunch of people with a belief system organized together... I don't know how you distinguish between a social club, a cult, and a religion other than going by what they claim for themselves. However, whatever the legal method of determining the answer to that, it should be applied consistently.
The process here should not be, "We think that Scientology is crazy and therefore not a valid religion, so we will revoke their legal protection on that basis." If there's no legal criteria to refer to, then you're setting a precedent for revoking the legal protections for any religion that you don't like. Go by the law. If the law is inadequate, then revise the law, but make sure you're comfortable with the revised law being applied consistently to all groups, including the group you belong to.
This. I tend to cringe at these megachurches that collect (metric) tons of money from poor people with the (false) promise of "health, wealth, and prosperity" - only to turn-around and spend hundreds of thousands, or even millions, to buy a fancy plane, property for a bigger parking-lot (I've personally seen that same church humiliate a poor, homeless person - by putting a suit jacket on them for service, then refuse to provide any kind of real material help.
The bible's position on it is pretty simple, "Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's..." - "USA" is printed on the dollar, churches ought to pay taxes. Even money that falls out of the sky counts as income.
Why can't all fpga/microcontroller manufacturers just release free optimizing compilers???
The question, I believe, is whether the CoS really is a belief organization, or a financial scam. Whether the followers have a belief or not is not something we can or should question, but we can certainly question the CoS.
Anyhow, I am all for all religious organizations losing their tax free status. It's built on a religious statement from the bible, that one should give god what belongs to god and the emperor what belongs to the emperor. Being that the law is religious based, it breaches the separation of state and church, and should be found unconstitutional.
You realize that the tax-exemption does render unto Caesar and God what is theirs, right? The minute that you revoke tax-exempt status for these Churches, they can always start a PAC? They can also start to preach politics from the pulpit. Right now their tax-exempt status is a a balance and check. Removing that opens the gates to what you might consider worse things. Imagine after being released from their tax-exempt status all of the Churches combined their efforts to not only reinstate the tax-exempt status, but also allow political contributions? Scientology has a pretty affluent clientele (flock?). Sharia law?
One step at a time. First you do the churches no one likes. Then you do the churches very few like. Then you wait a couple of generations and you can do blanket associations across all churches.
Your way leads to revolt. My way takes 2-3 generations but is done peacefully.
i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
Umm... In 2-3 generations the Czech Republic will have a significantly lower percent of Atheists than it does today. You think the atheists are going to win a multi-generational war of ideology when they pop out kids below replacement level vs. an adversary which discourages birth control and consequently has average birthrates that double their population every couple of decades?
If Stalin was trying to purge religion from the world 200 years later he did a shit job of it. Why do you think moral conservatives are opposed to education spending? Religious zealotry and birthrate decline with education attained(inverse relationship) such that a college educated public threatens the revenue streams of the churches.
Church is a protection racket with Satan as the enforcer. Access to information and dissenting perspectives via the internet and a more connected society is what is causing a temporary dip in religious participation by the general public, but when the dystopia hits "peak misery" the church will be waiting with open arms to sell various alternative forms of euphoria like sexual repression "edging" and fasting. Nothing like a fairy tale's promise to escape accountability for your own victimization via economic castes, hedonism, and bad decision making.
What's it to you if the religious text is a trade secret, you have to fork over cash to read their texts, and as far as civil trials are concerned they are operating withing the law.
The only people who are "victimized" by Scientology are Scientologists. It's not my problem nor yours.
Every organization sued or otherwise attacked by Scientology is also "victimized" by them. Are you interested in warning people against joining Scientology by telling them what it's really about? Prepare to be sued for releasing their Trade Secrets. Scientology's victims are hardly limited to their membership.
Now, if they break the law and really hurt someone - like institutionalizing the molesting small children - then that's for the cops to handle and they SHOULD be punished.
If Tom Cruise and other movie stars want to spend millions supporting the Scientolgists, that's their problem, not mine. The only problem I have with Tom Cruise is I wish he'd make more kick-ass science fiction movies.
But if we're gonna pick on kooky religions, I think we should start with the Mormons first. They actually have a history of murdering people.
In 1978 11 high ranking Scientology leaders were convicted in one of the largest counts of internal espionage of the IRS and federal attorney's offices.
In 1978 France convicted, in absentia, L Ron Hubbard of fraud.
In 1988 in Spain the Spanish head of Scientology and ten others were arrested on charges of fraud, coercion and labour law violations.
In 2009, a Paris court found the French Church of Scientology guilty of organized fraud and imposed a fine of nearly US$900,000.
Noah Lottick, died 1990
Lisa McPherson, died 1995
That means the plane, big building, parking lot, etc. gets paid for before taxes. Same with salaries
Not exactly. There are rules about how big your expenses can be for things like executive compensation. For example, when a company pays for business lunches for its executives to dine out, it can't reduce income by the entire amount. And a firm can't deduct the entire amount of, say salary ($1,000,000 cap) or stock options (cap on deductible amount on incentive stock options, which is why they also offer "non-quals", i.e., non-qualified stock options).
In general, if the choice is between the firm paying a tax or an executive paying the tax, the firm will generally pay the tax (in the US), since corporate rates are lower than the highest personal income tax rate. But if they can defer taxes altogether, by giving the executive something that will appreciate in value (like equity) but avoids immediate income tax, they will do that.
Well in many ways, Scientology is like Nazism.
There, NOW we have gone full godwin.
So are many religions as some of their members practice it today.
Just look at the fundies - when they get caught with hookers and coke and cheating on their wife by having sex with other men, they say "Jesus forgives me, how dare you continue to judge me!"
And yet they try to impose the "rules" that they themselves don't obey on others and sit in judgment of them, thumping on the Old Testament. It's not just limited to Westboro Baptist Church either.
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
Scientology is not a religion. It's a mafia masquerading as a religion. No other religion thugs on its members and makes them slaves to pay for revelation.
I am no friend of religion myself, but you have to understand Scientology is nothing like Judaism, Christianity, Islam, etc. in terms of behavior. No one forces you to pay to read the Quran. No one locks you up if you try to leave the Church. Contributions to Jewish congregation are voluntary, not compulsory. Of course there are fringe groups that do do these things. Amd they are rightly seem as cults far outside mainstream. Like Scientology is.
My point is simply the case of Scientology and the case against religion in general are completely different topics and you can't segue from one to the other.
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Those are the general guidelines. They don't really mean anything. As you note, the meaning of "religious organization" is unworkably vague. So are the meanings of "charitable" and "educational" groups.
Here's the IRS form you fill out to become tax exempt-
http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/f1023.pdf
The important parts are the questions like "Does your organization attempt to influence legislation", and the details of your finances. If you answer those correctly, they don't really care if you're a church, or a cult, or just a group of people who don't like wearing pants.
That makes no sense. The 501(c)3 tax code doesn't mention churches or religion at all.
Umm, yes it does:
The exempt purposes set forth in section 501(c)(3) are charitable, religious, educational, scientific, literary, testing for public safety, fostering national or international amateur sports competition, and preventing cruelty to children or animals.
I think you're both kind of right.
My understanding of it is that churches are automatically classified as 501(c)3 nonprofit charitable organizations to the IRS, without having to apply.
There are also other differences. For example, there is a "parsonage exemption" (ie. ministers can deduct housing expenses from their federal income tax), and church property is generally tax exempt as well.
Others have also brought up the ban on church intervention to political campaigns. I think it's worth noting a couple other details to that:
* That's not just for churches. It covers tax-exempt charitable organizations (ie. 501(c)3) in general.
* There are allowances for pastors to campaign as individuals, and for churches to speak out on public issues (as long as it doesn't cross the line too far).
FWIW, if the law was changed so churches weren't automatically tax-exempt, but 501(c)3 remained, then most churches and religious organizations would be mostly unaffected. I suspect that would include Scientology (they already employ a diverse structure of for-profit and non-profit companies to manage their stuff, carefully treading the lines).