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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?"
Okay, they got the Nazi thing wrong. But they definitely got the Scientology thing RIGHT.
SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
How is scientology any less of a religion than christianity or islam or mormons or any other belief system? If its ok for christians, it should be ok for scientologists, or it should be not ok for anyone to have tax exempt status.
Nobody wants first post? Afraid of getting "audited"?
http://tonyortega.org/2015/04/13/if-you-want-the-irs-to-reexamine-scientologys-tax-exempt-status-its-time-to-get-real/
Not just Scientologism. Shouldn't we be reexamining all tax exempt organizations that promote a religious belief as their sole claim to tax exempt? Run a soup kitchen, great, soup kitchen is tax exempt. Run an empire with a soup kitchen, the empire should not be tax exempt- true for scientologists and Christians.
First off, whether or not anyone thinks they are whacky or not, they are in fact a Religion, by all the criteria that count.
Second, elminating their tax exempt status will set loose unbridled lobbying efforts. Look at the history of what happened when the NRA was denied tax exempt status. An otherwise annoying bunch of gun nuts suddenly became a major political player.
Don't play with fire.
Don't take life too seriously; it isn't permanent.
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Besides, even if it was revoked, they would likely just find a really good accountant / lawyer team and end up paying the same amount (or less) in taxes.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.
should lose tax except status for at least ten years. I've no idea about scientology in particular though...
I have a lot of experience with the We the People petitions. Specifically, how they don't work like people think they do.
How people think it works: You gather enough signatures and then somehow, you introduce bills to congress with your stated goal
How it actually works: A white house rep sends you a generically worded statement about how in this case, the IRS is the agency in control of determining tax exempt status of the church.
There have been dozens of petitions for Westburough baptist church and Scientology and they always get the same response. "I have no control over this".
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.
Well, if the IRS re-examines them and decides they don't meet the definition of a religion, I don't see why they wouldn't revoke tax exempt status. They automatically revoke it if you fail to file the required reports: http://www.irs.gov/uac/IRS-Ide...
Still, the elephant in the room would be the (practical) tax exempt status of the Googles, Apples and Microsofts of this world. Not to mention all those finance wizards.
I'm a Christian, and I would prefer that there is no such thing as a 'religious' exemption from taxation. To me, that's contrary to the constitutional separation of church and state and is an example of the state's recognition of religion (if not the establishment of an official religion, of course).
No, simply churches should have to file as non-profits, and hew to the rules (including auditing, etc) therefor. If they do, great. If they don't, too bad.
-Styopa
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.
Now just get rid of the tax-exempt status of all the other religions. Except of course for the charity work they do, for which they will have to make their finances public, like the real charities have to.
Thank you, Bradley Manning, Edward Snowden and so many others, for courageously defending humanity, my freedom and more!
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.
If the church needs money, why isn't God flipping the bill? I think we should pull all religious funding and rely on the deity of that religion to provide it, if the deity doesn't, then clearly it doesn't care or can't.
Considering that the CoS not only waged war on, BUT DEFEATED the United States IRS, I would say this is wise. You can bet that Barack Obama (or any current U.S. Presidential candidate) is way more scared of the CoS than he is of Vladamir Putin.
Think he's the exception? Well, posters on Slashdot will openly criticize Vladamir Putin (or pretty much any leader). Now scroll up and look at this thread, and see that almost everyone critical of the CoS is posting AD.
I have many problems with the Scientologists and how they have conducted themselves, but there are many religious organizations from the Catholic church to televangalists to numerous unaffiliated organizations which have done horrible things to their communities and congregations at various times. Scientologists aren't even the only ones who have or currently put a price tag on better spiritual outcomes (e.g. tithing).
Scientology's religious status should not be in question. Just because it is new and it is based on a set of beliefs which you think are goofy doesn't make their spiritual or philisophical claims any less legally legitimate.
If the leadership of Scientology are involved in things which we generally find morally reprehensible we should certainly question why this state of affairs has been allowed to continue and seek reforms to address it. If they are in violation of our definitions of being a religious non-profit organization, that should also be pursued. To simply ask that an unpopular religious movement be stripped of legal recognition due to the misconduct of some of its leadership, however, is a political discrimination which we should be wary of. Americans' right to organize based on their shared belief regardless of what other people think of that belief is a protection we have traditionally valued and to erode it by selectively favouring some beliefs over others without clear, fair reasons is a dangerous precedent to adopt.
While we may not like this particular religion, that doesn't matter. They are a religious organization, and an organized religion. Especially in the United States, the government most certainly should not determine what is or is not a religion. It's stated pretty clearly here:
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof..."
Any religion will have aspects that people agree with and don't agree with. If their activity is outright illegal, then punish that specific activity. Christians can worship Christ. Muslims can worship Allah. Pastafarians can worship the Flying Spaghetti Monster. Satanists can worship Lucifer. Eco fairies can worship Mother Earth. Atheists can worship nothing. Democrats can worship government. Republicans can worship capitalism. And Scientologists can worship whatever it is they worship.
The minute we allow government to dictate what is or isn't a religion is the instant we lose all religious freedom.
Yes it is rather routine. But the institutions who get their status revoked aren't close to being exempt. The Church of Scientology does so many things that qualify it as a church its hard to imagine anything more than a fine without blatant intentional discrimination. The intent here is to encourage the state to attack a religion because they don't like it.
I'm a Christian as well. The state recognizing other religions is fine with me and most conservative Christians I know. Their existence and lawful activity is a fact of American life. I have no problem with the state recognizing other religions equally in this capacity because religion is a major part of public life and ignoring it is in fact giving favoritism to atheism, not neutrality.
I also think Scientology should not be recognized as a religion because there is a documentation trail showing that it was deliberately created as a fraud by Hubbard. To my knowledge, no other religion in the US can be accused of that. That is a legitimate basis for the state not granting it protection under the first amendment.
This just goes to show the dangers of relying on your own perception when it comes to issues like this. You can download a list of entities which lost their tax exempt status from the IRS themselves, which I am doing now, and (for those who automatically lose their status) it's a 20MB ZIP file containing text, so you can imagine how many records it contains. If their servers weren't so slow from over here I'd give you a precise number.
Don't trust that you know everything - double check you've not fooled yourself or been fooled by someone else. That has two benefits: You learn, and you decrease the chances of looking foolish.
Ok it's a good start, but what about the rest, the other religions? What makes Scientology so special?
They should classify them as religious terrorists for extortion and other threats that they constantly participate in. That would end it right there.
It would be nice to see a petition that instead makes a cogent, fact-based, reasoned argument against the COS's legal eligibility for tax-exempt status, rather than a rant consisting of a bunch of unproven allegations, unspecified accusations of government corruption that sound like they come from conspiracy nuts, some borderline libel, with a couple facts thrown in. It wouldn't be that difficult to do, and it might actually make it awkward for the White House to dismiss, rather than making it easy by inviting them to defend their tax status as an example of how the U.S. defends "oppressed" religions.
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
From the post, it appears that CoS was within their rights to demand the take-down - if the post was their copyrighted material, and Dice's lawyers thought it didn't constitute fair use, then it was legitimate take-down. A shitty move that only a fucking dodgy organisation like CoS would to, but a legal move none the less. Don't like it, then complain to your representative (holding your breath is not recommended).
Luckily I live in a country where CoS was described as "pernicious nonsense", "dangerous material" and "immoral and socially obnoxious". And that was by our courts.
Does anyone thing that the petition being at *exactly* 26,000 signatures seem odd?
I am Homer of Borg, resistance is - Ooo Donuts!
That's like saying you've read the Bible and now understand any given Christian denomination or the Quran and now understand Islam. The actual religions are often quite different from the book that sprang from. In the case of Scientology, if you happen to catch the recent HBO documentary, they mention that Scientology is a repackaging of Dianetics as a religion that came about after sales of the book died down. So to say Scientology is not a religion because you once read Dianetics....that's a big leap.
Watch the movie and read up on scientology. While this strikes at the heart of what scientology actually started as (An attempt by Hubbard to avoid taxes) they got their tax exempt status post-humously by harassing the ever loving hell out of the IRS through a massive lawsuit campaign, along with probably illegal tactics like conducting raids against the IRS (yup, that way around). At that point scientology was worth about 1/4 billion.
Today they're worth about 1.5 billion cash, and it's assumed they own about 3 billion in real estate. Taking away their tax exempt status will basically cause them to open their equivalent of a nuclear football against the US.
...and pirate regalia, just remember where the faux-religion persecution started.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
At the time, fighting that suit would have been an existential threat to the site given the CoS's aptitude for using lawyers. That's fine and all, if your primary activity is fighting that stuff and you're ready to do so.
However, this is primarily a tech news aggregation site that has a free speech commitment, not a free speech at all costs site. I'm willing to give them a pass on it. The reality is that the way the site works would allow someone to post that material again, and until CoS finds it and they set the DMCA on it again, this site would be able to temporarily host it, and would continue to do so until the lawyers attacked. That's good enough for me because it gets the material out there. If you're sharp-eyed enough, you could then grab it and spread it via your other channels. Mission accomplished.
I think it's more important to note that Obama has done literally shit all to act on any of those "We the People" petitions. Any time they hit 100k, they just write some politically-correct bullshit... or with Snowden they literally wrote nothing at all.
I mean who honestly believes Obama really cares about your/our petitions?
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.
Liberty Media is another company like those you mentioned. They actually pride themselves on not ever paying US taxes on their earnings and they have an entire accounting department dedicated to finding legal loopholes and deductions that allow them to pay no taxes. They became the owners of the Atlanta Braves baseball team through a complicated transaction with Time Warner that resulted in neither company paying any taxes on the deal. That deal happened in the previous decade so I don't remember if Liberty Media actually wanted the Braves or if they simply acquired them as the best way to avoid taxes on the deal with Time Warner but that deal raised a lot of eyebrows in the US sporting world and provided the first insights into how far Liberty Media will go to legally avoid paying taxes.
Bringer of the Thetans, and destroyer of BILLION year old volcanoes :P
And don't forget after you learn about Xenu, you start gaining super powers, you get telekinesis, clairvoyance, force someone with your mind to do your bidding, ability to cure by touching someone. See the future and the past. And eventually space travel with astral projection.
http://file.wikileaks.org/file...
Not only that, many churches then use that donated monies to provide services to the general public, especially the poor.
So they can't operate a Political Action Committee. They get to, just like any other corporation, if you take away their tax exempt status.
Scientology, however, is a for profit business that is masquerading as a religion. In that sense, it is a fraud. It is not sincerely a religion to those who founded or operate it.
I'd also argue that some of the megachurches out there are also for profit frauds.
We may need to redefine what "non-profit" means. You can get very personally rich if you hold certain roles in a big non-profit, which can lead to undermining the concept of a non-profit. Sometimes, it is warranted, if you are simply an employee with specific skills needed to operate the organization. If you operate your church as a family business, however, I am not so sure that certain restrictions are unwarranted.
That said, given a choice of letting CoS have their tax exempt status and removing tax exempt status from all religions, I'd let them keep it. Taxing them removes money from them, but they'd probably just increase their pricing to pass it on to the ahem, "customer".
If you just shot such people out of hand, even the CoS would give up. Or be dead.
The right granted by society when they formed a government.
The short of it is that most people want some kind of government. Most want at least some police capability, somebody to come put fires out, build roads, and that sort of thing. Those things cost money.
You were probably born into a nation that existed for a long time, so you didn't necessarily grant consent personally. You can leave. I understand that can have some financial costs, which I personally disagree with. If it were up to me, I'd let anyone renounce their citizenship at the border on their way out for free.
Every religion's lies and bullshit are equally valid, including Scientology. Take away tax-free status from ALL of them. They're ALL just big money-grubbing BUSINESSES.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
Singling out just one group because it gets the most publicity isn't good enough, and i don't think it would set a good precedent. signing petitions just to target one individual [organization] is little better than a lynch mob.
Instead, we should have a real discussion in this country about tax free status of all religions. In my opinion, none of them deserve it. They are all businesses bringing in money. They should participate in the system just like we expect Apple or Walmart to. Plenty of deductions and loopholes exist for charitable acts. I'm sure if an organization is leveraging those provisions, we would all be fine with them paying less taxes.
I wouldn't say that they are "scared" of CoS. I'd say that it doesn't really matter much to them. CoS is a constitutional headache that the government doesn't need.
I'd say it is a religion as defined in law, but a religion currently run by criminals.
Take the Catholic Church. You can sincerely be a Catholic and believe in the value of the position of Pope, but there have been times that Popes were tried and their corpses thrown into the Tiber. And this was actually done by Catholics themselves.
CoS could (in 100 years) be a nice bland religious organization if it eventually comes under the control of more sincere and reasonable people who actually believe in that twaddle and want to run a church, as opposed to a scam.
The CoS leaders should be investigated and tried for the crimes that they have committed, but I'm okay with CoS keeping their exempt status.
Like trying to discredit critics by getting them blamed for bomb threats? (Operation Freakout)
Like infiltrating government organizations and agencies in order to find out what materials those organizations have on the CoS? (Operation Snow White)
Mr. Hu is not a ninja.
You know discriminating a religion because of it's beliefs.
Sorry, teleporters just kill you and then make a copy. A perfect, soul-less copy.
but that was before the Dice takeover.
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
as legitimate religion. Christians, Muslims, Pagans, etc, are all guilty of the same abandonment of logic, and the accompanying embrace of superstition. Differences about the exact way that should be done leads to schism, war, ostracism, and martyrdom. Scientology is little better or worse than any other religion in that regard. There are suckers born every minute, and no shortage of con persons willing to take advantage.
The USA is only 4X older than me...perspective
Religious institutions own business and property. They don't have to pay taxes on any of this, which means that while *my* business and property taxes go up, they're free to continue on their merry way, polluting the airwaves with drivel, owning prime real estate forever without fear of confiscation by the authorities due to unpaid taxes, and so on. Nice deal, that.
If a religious organizations want to start a fan club with a big building, it's their business, but let them pay their share for the surrounding infrastructure (i.e. roads, law enforcement, flood control, sewage, etc.).
Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
If you do this, you'll establish a precedent saying that picking which religions deserve tax-exempt status is acceptable, and then the nightmare begins. Some will say the Catholic church should be non-exempt due to its handling of the pedophile priest scandal. The half of the Presbyterian church that opposes gay marriage will try to non-exempt the half that accepts it, and vice versa. Every religious controversy will lead to a demand to effectively de-churchify a denomination, and the federal government will be the final arbiter of who gets to be a church, in clear violation of the Establishment clause.
So if the scientologists can't be tax-exempt, nobody gets to be exempt. I know Slashdot is full of atheists (I'm one), so maybe a lot of us like this idea. But any politician who proposes it will be demonized by every priest, minister, rabbi, and imam in the country. If you think they believe atheists are assholes now, wait till we try to tax their faiths.
You've got to pick your battles, and this is a bad one. You can't carve this one sect out of the herd of religions without culling the whole herd, and you do not want to be face-to-face with a horde of enraged cattle with pointy horns.
Great. And if they can they *prove* it, they can have tax-exempt status.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
Revoke any church tax exemptions as well as corporate tax exemptions.
Really Scientology is tax exempt under being a church if you revoke it you must revoke other churches as well.
I am Bennett Haselton! I am Bennett Haselton!
Bloody hell - 2001 - I didn't notice that part. So it wasn't Dice lawyers, it was some other lawyers. Surely the point still stands though?
Except they're all questionable. Every last one.
BeauHD. Worst editor since kdawson.
How is scientology any less of a religion than christianity or islam or mormons or any other belief system? If its ok for christians, it should be ok for scientologists, or it should be not ok for anyone to have tax exempt status.
Why you shouldn't consider Scientology a religion and Christianity, Jews, etc. are religions.
Just look at names of the prophets..
* Jesus Christ - that's a real prophet's name.
* Moses - sounds like a real prophet to me, too.
* Buddha - Definitely a prophet.
* Mohammed - Yep, sounds good to me.
* L. Ron Hubbard - Nope.. No way that's a prophet's name.. Hubbard? Come on..
* Joe Smith - ok, now you're pushing it.. No prophet would ever be named Joe.
That's all you need to do.
Do you need deities? Do you need churches?
What is the difference between religion, and other non-profits, as far as taxes go?
If you are an administrator, for a church, or non-profit, are you taxed on expenses? For example, if the organization gave you a hotel room for a night, and travel expenses, would those be taxed?
Leave the laws as they are so we can use them. The government cannot make something illegal for one church, and illegal for another.
1) Start a church, or other non-profit.
2) Make yourself the administrator
3) Pay yourself a very small salary, that will be taxable.
4) The house you live in, the cars/boats/airplanes you use, etc. will all belong to the non-profit, so no taxes on the money needed to buy those.
5) Give yourself an unlimited expense account for food, travel, lodging, health care, clothes, entertainment, etc. As long as it is considered church business, it's not taxable.
6) Aside from taking donations, you can run a business that gives all revenue to the non-profit. Then take the money back out in the form of whatever you want: for example buy a car for the non-profit that is yours to use. The non-profit will, of course, also pay for insurance, fuel, maintenance, and a driver.
Let's repeal the tax-exempt status of all religions! There isn't the slightest good reason that they should be tax exempt in the first place. For one thing, they are organizations devoted to coercing and conditioning the young to believe in absurdities. For another, they wield political power and influence and I don't want my own tax dollars making up the deductions taken by those individuals who are directly or indirectly supporting political positions I don't agree with. For a third, it is semantically and epistemologically impossible to differentiate a "religion" from a "cult". All religions began as cults and are cults still -- they both consists of a group of people who claim special and absurd knowledge of things that cannot be independently and objectively verified or observed and who want to convince others that accepting this "knowledge" as true will grant them equally special status promised, curiously enough, only as a part of the knowledge that must be accepted.
The two words refer to the same thing, at most separated by a scale factor. Either we make pastafarianism a tax-exempt religion or allow special tax concessions to any Subgenius preacher claiming to spread the word of J. R. "Bob" Dobbs, or Methodism and Judaism and Islam and Catholicism and Scientology and... (the list continues, and continues) should all have all forms of special status revoked. Religion can be a tax-paid-dollar supported club all it wants, but the idea that money paid into a kitty to be given to somebody to support a building and employee whose sole purpose is to promise people ludicrous rewards or tortures and to believe in magic should some how have the same status as money given to (say) UNICEF or Care is absolutely ridiculous.
So please, sign this petition. If we make Scientology financially untenable, maybe then we can tackle the next 100 cults on the same list.
rgb
Even when the experts all agree, they may well be mistaken. --- Bertrand Russell.
Yep... exploiting loopholes... nothing more Mercan than that!
My eyes reflect the stars and a smile lights up my face.
Couldn't they have worded this petition a little better? It's a very serious issue and it's written a little like a drunken rant.
I'm sure if you actually looked into the ownership, you will find that the restaurants, coffee shops and bookstores are owned by an organization that is not tax-exempt, although it may have some common ownership with the organization which owns the Church.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
Like everything else ever submitted by that joke site.
"Sorry. But I'm never going to do this. So, politely, fuck off!"
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
Couldn't resist the chance to be an "apostrophe-s Nazi" in a Godwin's Law chain.
That sounds like Food Babe logic. If you can't pronounce the chemicals that make your food it's bad for you and don't eat it!
If a prophets name doesn't sound "prophety" enough they are not a prophet.
A charitable organisation has to PROVE it is a charity under the definitions of the tax law rules. A *religious* charitable organisation does not have to give any proof.
Wrong. A Church has to apply for 501(c) just like any other Charitable organization, and is subject to the same tax rules, other than some minor rules about auditing.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
people really have to understand that Scientology is a thug mafia make believing it is a religion. it is no religion
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O...
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Is described here: http://tonyortega.org/2015/04/...
The rest of Tony Ortega's site is interesting too.
At the rate the signature collections are going, it looks like there will only be about 40% of the required number by the 22 April deadline. Better pick up the pace if you want this to go!
Oh, I'm sorry sir, I thought you were referring to me, Mr. Wensleydale.
Honestly, Scientology is a religion founded by a science fiction writer who famously said "You don't get rich writing science fiction. If you want to get rich, you start a religion."
Isn't this the crux of the debate though: is scientology a religion or just bad science fiction? Indeed perhaps this is a good way to look at it. If scientology is classed as a religion then why not Trekkies or Star Wars fans? There is just as much "religious" fervour in those groups, if not more, and the science fiction is better written.
I personally don't agree with or like Scientology. We should de-fund it. ....and what about those stupid christian cults who abuse snakes.. and also Mormons? anyone that beleives in getting bit and magic underwear is insane not religious....and Jews? They cover expansionist stealing of land from Palestinians as being OK according to God. Not something I want my tax $ to go to. lets defund synagogues.
I also don't think Islam should be funded because they are about terrorism and Jihad and killing people it says so right in the Qu'ran. We need to remove tax exemption for Islam.
What about patriotism and the government telling me what I should think? Isn't that just another belief system and therefore religion? shouldn't we defund democracy?
See where I'm going with this?
What makes Scientology all that much worse than any other religion? Let's just kill the tax-exempt status for all of them and be done with it.
how can people claim that a religion shouldnt be exempt from taxes while at the same time say that their own religion should? i have nothing against removing scientology's exempt status as long as they remove it from every religion.
Just dropping by to say that I signed the petition and shared it with some friends.
Carry on.
Why should anyone's "social club" have tax exmpt status?
The amount of real charity done by any I can find is effectively 0, compared to the revenue.
https://petitions.whitehouse.g...
Casteism
What is it that we think makes Scientology so egregious when compared with other tax-exemptions? It seems to me that if this gets pushed hard enough we will conclude that "tax-exempt status" for religious groups leads to a violation of the amendment, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion". Only by NOT granting tax exempt status do we get government out of the business of deciding what is a valid religion and what is not. Look how well it worked to let government define marriage. Be careful what you wish for.
"There is no god but allah" - well, they got it half right.