Just finished reading Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood, and the Prison of Belief, by Lawrence Wright (2013). It only confirms my belief that we need to end tax exemptions for all religions.
I've already forgotten the details, but I think it was as recent as the early-1990s that the IRS could have destroyed Scientology. The group owed many millions in back taxes and were fighting the IRS with everything it had to re-obtain the tax exempt status it had lost in 1967. The fight in the courts went on for more than two decades, and the "church" had more financial resources (and the will) to keep it going than did the IRS. Scientology as an organization and individual members filed over 2500 lawsuits against the IRS in every part of the country. If they had lost, and had to pay all their back taxes, it would have wiped them out. According to Wright, citing the Scientology leader, virtually the entire IRS budget for legal battles was consumed by the Scientology cases for several years. Finally, the "church" got what it wanted: tax exemption and release from its back tax obligation.
There are already so many abuses of the tax exempt status by organized religions (OMG, this earlier post is already three and a half years old!). Rather than put the IRS in the hopeless position of having to decide what is and what isn't a religion, why not take them out of the equation altogether and say that no religion is tax exempt.
It seems to me that government recognition of religious belief in any form and the bestowal of tax benefits on their organizations is a violation of the establishment clause and discriminates against tax-paying atheists.
5 comments:
I hadn't thought about it that way, Gerald. I think you may be right.
Diane, Now that's the kind of comment I love. Maybe Bob Peterson will read it and be moved to leave a similar comment sometime. (Although I think he already agrees with me, more or less, on this one, singular subect.
Yes, Gerry, I do agree with you on this one. Not sure what the ultimate solution may be, but the abuse by Scientology is awful, and I sure agree that the IRS missed the chance to do the world a favor.
As far as saying, "I think you may be right," whoa, that's a biggie. Are you sure?? lol
Bob,
What I read made it seem that the IRS didn´t have much of a chance. Scientology literally had more money than the government, or at least than this one government agency, and they were willing to spend whatever it took, because they knew they were fighting for their continued existence.
Of course one reason they had so much money was because they had been refusing to pay taxes since forever.
The more I think about it, the more I believe that we agree on a lot of things. We seem to be focused, however, on the things we do not agree upon.
That makes it seem that we are farther apart than we may actually be.
You mentioned today that education is key to the progress in the treatment of women and girls. Totally agree. You are absolutely correct. Achieving higher educational goals worldwide is a huge undertaking for which I have no solution, but would be willing to offer any help I could deliver.
When we have discussed education in previous emails, I have zeroed in on the awful situation with the Kansas City school district. That doesn't have much to do with our general agreement about the value of education, but just describes a local tragedy that money doesn't seem to be able to cure. Do you remember the Superintendent who left KC and went to Detroit? Detroit schools are currently in receivership, but he know he was going from the frying pan into the fire.
Back to Scientology--for those of us who have paid taxes for many years, it doesn't seem right that they should be tax exempt, but who decides if you are a real religion, anyway? Flawed enough to go the direction you offer, eliminate all religions from tax exemptions.
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