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The tax status of the Church of Scientology in the United States has been the subject of decades of controversy and litigation. Although the Church of Scientology was initially partially exempted by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) from paying federal income tax, its two principal entities in the United States lost this exemption in 1957 and 1968.
Although church spokesperson Karin Pouw says that restoring buildings of historical significance is a way that the church "gives back to the community", according to LA Weekly, former high-ranking Scientology officials claim that profit is the main reason why the studio was built, while the church maintains its tax-free status. [24] [26]
In 2007 an official claimed 3.5 million members in the United States [3] but, according to a 2001 survey published by the City University of New York, 55,000 people in the United States would, if asked to identify their religion, have stated Scientology. [4] Tom Cruise is the most well known Scientologist in the United States as well as other ...
One goal of the Church of Scientology is to be recognized as a religion or a tax-free charity, which has met resistance from several governments, with Scientology taking to the courts with varying results. For example, Scientology's path to legal recognition as a religion in New Zealand took 48 years and several lawsuits. [8]
The group met several times with the Scientology legal team and, according to an unnamed official quoted by the New York Times, "was persuaded that those involved in the Snow White crimes had been purged, that church money was devoted to tax-exempt purposes and that, with Mr. Hubbard's death, no one was getting rich from Scientology." [53]
But the church, she says, was actually a cult. Walker spent her formative years, since age 8, in the group. She says it was a place where members were unable to question leaders "without facing ...
A religious exemption is a legal privilege that exempts members of a certain religion from a law, regulation, or requirement. Religious exemptions are often justified as a protection of religious freedom, and proponents of religious exemptions argue that complying with a law against one's faith is a greater harm than complying against a law that one otherwise disagrees with due to a fear of ...
[27] Similarly, the French sociologist Régis Dericquebourg, who deeply studied the religion, concluded that Antoinism is not a cult: it "has no totalitarian influence on its members, and do not dictate their behaviour to get in the world; it is not exclusive [and] shows no hostility towards social systems". [28]