Alex Gibney’s HBO documentary “Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief” debuted to a standing ovation at the Sundance Film Festival. Based upon Lawrence Wright’s book of the same name, Gibney’s documentary features many prominent former Scientologists including former OSA Int’l boss Mike Rinder.
Variety just weighed in on Gibney’s film::
“The documentary is a broadside against the controversial religion. It argues that Scientology exploits its tax exempt status to amass millions of dollars in property and donations, behaving more like a business than a charity.”
The Variety article quotes Mike Rinder:
Mike Rinder
“’If you are a U.S. Attorney or any form of prosecutor in the United States and you want to take on the Church of Scientology in a case like this, make it your career,’ said Mike Rinder, a former senior executive in the Church of Scientology.”
“’There is a cost benefit analysis that every prosecutor and every overworked law enforcement agency goes through to decide are they going to devote enormous amounts of time and resources to attempting to prosecute this sort of crime or are they going to get murderers off the streets,’” he added.
The Scientology Money Project could not agree more.
We stand ready to assist any U.S. Attorney or prosecutor in investigating the Church of Scientology and its criminal activities: Human rights abuses; fraud; false and misleading advertising; etc.
What stands out most to us is the Church of Scientology’s malicious system of using unconscionable contracts to strip Scientologists of their legal rights to the greatest extent possible. These sham contracts are here at the Scientology Money Project:
How Scientology Inc. Legally Cripples Its Own Members: The Four Unconscionable Contracts
From Alex Gibney’s Jigsaw Productions Twitter Page:
Categories: The Scientology Money Project
I couldn’t agree more. So many, whether Sea Org members, staff or a simple parishioners, have a story that would be a 501c3 violation. If any prosecutor wants to hear my story, I’m hear to tell it and do anything I can do to stop the continued abuses that this church inflicts under the protection of the First Amendment.
The question seems to be a very easy one. The US Supreme Court ruled against Scientology having a 501c3 in 1989. The US Tax Court did the same in 1997. The Ninth Circuit did the same in 2002 and added that the proper course of action was to file a law suit against the Internal Revenue Commission forcing it to comply with all higher court decisions. When questions about this issue are sent to the IRS, they are forwarded to the Exempt Organizations Division which responds by saying that Congress prohibited sharing tax payer information with the public. In Scientology language that means making a statement which may be true but which actually avoids answering the question. And the question is “Why does the IRS continue to allow Scientology to have a 501c3 when every high court finding said “NO”.
In the 1980s, eight Scientologists went to jail for infiltrating IRS offices and stealing IRS documents pertaining to the group. And Scientology still follows the advice of Hubbard to place people in positions of power so that when questions raised are about Scientology, they will be answered by a Scientologist. When the head of the FBI office in Los Angeles retired years ago, he made the statement that Scientology had a better information gathering system than even the FBI.
Send you requests for an answer to the office of IRS Commissioner John Koskinen asking him to investigate the issue without forwarding it the Exempt Organizations Division.
The benefit to the IRS could be immense. When given the exemption in 1993, the head of Scientology told an audience in Los Angeles that Scientologists had just saved $1 BILLION by deducting from their taxes payments for classes called “FIXED DONATIONS”.
Scientology requires a payment for every service it gives. If you don’t pay in advance, you don’t get the service. FIXED DONATIONS IS AN OXYMORON. It is “something that is made up of contradictory or incongruous elements:”. (Webster’s Dictionary)
Wake up IRS. Every governmental agency, from local city and county administration to the Federal Government would recover millions by being able to tax Scientology properties and income because of the way it raises it’s money.
so frustrating! I think that the IRS & USA is so fearful of offending a “religious” belief that they err on the side of political correctness. This does NOT HELP DEMOCRACY.
This does not help democracy, this is complicity with a criminal enterprise and by the way Scientology was never a religion, it is a fake science that Hubbard’s attorneys turned into a religion to avoid prosecution from the FDA and the FBI.
The Republican congress just dealt the IRS a serious blow by defunding it. Now they’ve dropped almost all customer service positions, so I don’t think they’re gonna be willing to take on Scientology any time soon. The costs are tremendous.
How can one find details of donations given and who has donated to the C of S please?