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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.
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.
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Besides, even if it was revoked, they would likely just find a really good accountant / lawyer team and end up paying the same amount (or less) in taxes.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.
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".
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.
they are in fact a Religion, by all the criteria that count.
Some might observe that they're also a criminal organization, by all criteria that count.
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.
They should also be made to pay taxes, like real people do. Btw Apple recently claimed the biggest profit in history and said they paid a hefty sum of taxes over that, we're talking 26,3% here.
Are you saying that's a lie?
Thank you, Bradley Manning, Edward Snowden and so many others, for courageously defending humanity, my freedom and more!
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.
... as should unions?
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.
You mean the NRA, or religions in general?
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/
Some might observe that it's doubtful there's been a time in history where the two were mutually exclusive.
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.
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.
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