Apr 23, 2006
The nature and legal status of the Church continue to arouse controversy around the world. The governments of Germany and Belgium officially regard the Church as a totalitarian cult; in France, a parliamentary report classified Scientology as a dangerous cult; in the United Kingdom and Canada, the Church is not regarded as meeting the legal standards for being considered a bona fide religion or charity. However in 1993 the U.S. Internal Revenue Service recognised the Church as a "non-profit charitable organization", and gave it the same legal protections and favorable tax treatment extended to long-established religious groups.
A New York Times article asserts that Scientologists paid private investigators to obtain compromising material on the IRS commissioner and blackmailed the IRS into submission.[3] Six levels of indents down in the eventually leaked "closing agreement," the IRS is contractually required to discriminate in their treatment of Scientology to the exclusion of all other groups.
Comments:
Post a Comment
