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Tax fraud is committed in connection with obtaining tax exempt status. Andre
Tabayoyan removes 12 ocean-going sea containers of commingled RTC, CSI
and other documents from Gilman Hot Springs, prior to the IRS inspection. He
buries them. (Criminal
Time Track: Issue III, (13))
The Scientologists call it "baby-watching", but it has nothing to do with looking after infants. Tim Kelsey and Mike Ricks investigate the potentially dangerous, and possibly illegal, secret treatment that the world's largest cult uses to deal with difficult members.
...The "baby-watching" incident with the German student occurred in 1991. But the technique has been used more recently, according to confidential church documents dating from September 1993, which have been leaked to the Independent. These show that the Scientologists mounted an internal investigation after a baby watch conducted on another German, again at Saint Hill, last year. The investigation was instigated because the woman put in isolation was already suffering from an acute mental disorder - in the terminology used by the investigating officer, she was Type III, which translates as "insane". She went insane, according to the document, while she was working for the organisation in Europe. In early 1993, she arrived in
Saint Hill and was put on a baby watch because she was thought to be a "security risk". Her boyfriend was put in charge of the watch. But something went badly wrong, and the watch was "very extended" because of incompetence by local officials, reports the document. It is not clear whether she was locked in a room throughout or allowed, as is sometimes the case, to walk around during the watch. There seems to be some dispute about whether the local staff were adequately trained to deal with such a case, and permission for her "treatment" finally had to come directly from the American leadership of the cult.
Several of the most senior officers of the British arm of the cult were blamed for allowing this woman to remain a member of the cult - according to the internal memo, she apparently had a history of drug abuse. These senior members were ordered to attend an internal tribunal. If found guilty of failing to ensure the "security" of the member, they will be demoted and sentenced to a period of "rehabilitation" through hard labour. According to the report, it seems that the woman escaped from Saint Hill, was arrested by police and then returned to Germany.
One former senior cult official who worked in the Californian section of the organisation was involved in several baby watches. On one occasion, a woman staff member was put in isolation after she started throwing furniture out of the window of her flat, which overlooked Hollywood Boulevard. She was then locked in her room. "We had to take all the furniture out of the room, strip it completely and leave her in there on her own for more than a week," the official said. "She was just crazy, talking to herself and screaming."
...
... It is not just baby-watching that is causing concern. One Zimbabwean man, Noel Matarandirotya, who has now left the organisation and has been advised by his legal counsel that he may have grounds to seek compensation from the Scientologists for, among other things, false imprisonment, claims that he collapsed as a result of intensive interrogation. He came to Saint Hill in 1991, on a ticket paid for by the cult, but the following year he was suspected of subverting the interests of the organisation. He alleges that he was interrogated for two or three hours every day, often with a lie detector connected by electrodes to his hands....(Independent, January 31, 1994,
The Prisoners of Saint Hill, By Tim Kelsey and Mike Ricks (excerpt))
The IRS agrees to grant tax
exemptions to every Scientology entity in the United
States, plus foreign entities based in the UK and Cyprus.
The Church files new applications for exemptions as part
of the agreement.
(Timeline of Scientology versus the IRS)
Two IRS tax analysts write
internal memoranda saying that they have been instructed
to ignore substantive issues in reviewing the new
Scientology applications. Ref: New York Times, 9
March 1997
(Timeline of Scientology versus the IRS)
The agreement comes into
force. Scientology pays the IRS $12.5m in back taxes and
drops all the lawsuits brought by Church entities and
individual Scientologists against the IRS. Ref: Closing agreement on final determination
covering specific matters, 1 Oct 1993
(Timeline of Scientology versus the IRS)
The Department of Justice tells the IRS to issue a tax exemption. The
Community Relations Service of the Department of Justice negotiated a secret Civil settlement with both the Church of Scientology and the Church
Universal & Triumphant of Montana. Dow Jones and a Montana newspaper have sued the Dept of Justice to try and find out what is going on. The Dept of
Justice has acted illegally – they must reveal Civil settlements to the public.
For the Dept of Justice to tell the IRS what to do, they must do it at the Cabinet level with the President sitting, listening and agreeing to the
breach of law. (Criminal
Time Track: Issue III, (57))
The IRS made a deal with Scientology. They gave them tax exemption without telling why, although they had won against Scientology in
Hernandez v Commissioner, 490 U.S. 680 (1989) and in Church of Spiritual Technology v
U.S., US Claims Court No. 581-88T, 6/29/92 (1992)
Note: What is this about the Justice Department ordering the IRS to give Scientology tax exemption, based on a secret settlement agreement?
That’s odd. What was the agreement? That Miscavige will squirrel the OT levels and
not make any OTs in exchange for tax exemption? We will be doing further investigation into this.
David Miscavige meets with the IRS Commissioner. After 40 years of fighting,
the IRS gives Scientology tax exemption. The terms of the agreement are kept secret and not disclosed to other church
members. It is a 61 page document.
The Church pays the IRS 12.5 million and agrees to drop thousands of suits against the IRS. It also agrees to stop assisting others in lawsuits
against the IRS.
The secret settlement agreement permits Miscavige and certain other Scientologists to monitor, supervise, and compel their own
"compliance", and that of all Scientologists, with the tax laws of the US thereby
constituting them "state actors" and agents of the IRS.
A copy of the 61 page secret agreement was obtained and it states:
The parties have entered into this agreement in order to put the past controversy behind them, to extinguish all potential claims and liabilities
arising as a result of action or inaction prior to the date of this Agreement and to structure their relationship into the future.
First, under section II of the Agreement the Church will make a single payment that is intended to extinguish any potential tax liability that may
be due and unpaid by any Scientology-related entity for all tax years up to and including the tax year ending in 1992.
Second, under section II of the Agreement, the Church and the Service will withdraw from virtually all existing controversy, including on-going
examinations of Church entities, ongoing litigation by the Service to enforce summonses for Church records, and all litigation by the Church
against the Service and its current or former personnel. Similarly, no Scientology-related entity may initiate or support any legal action against
the Service or any Service employee for any claim arising prior to the date of the Agreement.
Notwithstanding the above, in light of, inter alia, the size and complexity
of the Church and the Service, certain concerns of the Service and the Church remain. Thus, under section IV, a Church Tax Compliance Committee
(CTCC) has been created to undertake certain obligations during the seven-year transition period. The CTCC is to be comprised of the largest
United States Church entities, as well as those individuals who are the highest ecclesiastical or corporate authorities within the Church. The
Service, through the Assistant Commissioner, has agreed to meet with the CTCC upon their request during the transition period to address any
questions arising from the ongoing performance of the parties’ obligations
under this Agreement.
In light of the CTCC and its relationship to the whole of Scientology, the CTCC has agreed under section IV to guarantee the collection of taxes
(including interest and penalties) from any Scientology-related entity for tax liability arising during the first three years of the seven year
transition period. The parties have agreed under section V to keep confidential both this Agreement and all underlying information that is not
part of the public record….
At the same time this Agreement is executed, Church of Scientology International is paying by banker’s draft the sum of $12,500,000.00,
receipt of which the Service hereby acknowledges, as consideration for the settlement of outstanding issues with the Service as set forth in this
Agreement.
The corporate CTCC members are Religious Technology Center (RTC), Church of
Spiritual Technology (CST), Church of Scientology Flag Service Organization (CSFSO), Church of Scientology Western United States (CSWUS), Building
Management Services (BMS), and Church of Scientology Religious Trust (CSRT).
The individual members of the CTCC are David Miscavige, Norman Starkey, Mark
Rathburn and Heber Jentzsch. No individual member of the CTCC shall be permitted to withdraw from service on the CTCC, except by reason of death,
being adjudicated an incompetent, or by mutual agreement of the parties of this Agreement.
Specific responsibilities and duties of the CTCC shall include the following:
- Annual Report.
- The CTCC and the Assistant Commissioner shall meet no less than once each
year.
- The corporate CTCC members absolutely and unconditionally, jointly and
severally, guarantee to the Service the full and prompt payment of all U.S.
tax liabilities under the Code (including but not limited to income tax),
together with all interest and penalties, accruing or arising during
the first three years of the transition period with respect to all Scientology-related entities.
- David Miscavige will act as the initial Chairman of the CTCC. He may be
removed from this office and replaced by another individual CTCC member by
majority vote of the CTCC members.
D. Certifications.
- In general, by executing this agreement, the Church signatories in their
trust or corporate capacities, and their subscribing officers or trustees
individually, certify under penalty of perjury the following to the best of
their knowledge, information and belief:
- that all Scientology-related entities are in compliance with the Code,
Treasury regulations and other Service pronouncements of general guidance
and applicability;
- that no Scientology-related entity or Scientology-related individual (in
his or her capacity as such) has, after 1986, knowingly committed any act of
fraud or criminal conduct that might constitute a violation of public policy
endangering the tax-exempt status of any Scientology-related entity…
- Norman F. Starkey, as Trustee of Author’s Family Trust B, shall, no
later than December 31, 1993, effectuate the transfer of substantially all of the
corpus and income in Author’s Family Trust B, including all the shares of
Author Services, Inc. (ASI) as permitted under the will of L.Ron Hubbard to
the Church of Spiritual Technology (CST) without consideration.
H. Finality. This agreement is final and conclusive except:
- The matter it relates to may be reopened in the event of fraud, malfeasance, or misrepresentation of material fact; (Criminal
Time Track: Issue III, (7))
Note: So, by this secret agreement, David Miscavige and some other top execs have
now become IRS agents. Working to enforce the payment of taxes.
Further note:
This also shows their Achilles heel:
c. “that no Scientology-related entity or Scientology-related individual
(in his or her capacity as such) has, after 1986, knowingly committed any act
of fraud or criminal conduct that might constitute a violation of public
policy endangering the tax-exempt status of any Scientology-related entity…”
Heber already spent 30 days in jail in Spain.
And, this time track is full of fraud and criminal acts.
Particularly easy to prove is their fraud of altering the technology. The
evidence is abundant.
LRH never agreed to that. Read RTC’s and CST’s articles of
incorporation. They have violated them by altering his issues.
LRH’s last-minute will, giving CST the copyrights, itself smells of
fraud. Be that as it may, the will states that RTC and CST do not get his
trademarks and copyrights unless they have tax exemption.
So:
- Proving they have committed fraud or criminal acts means they lose tax
exemption.
- Loss of tax exemption means they no longer own the trademarks and
copyrights.
- This means they go back to the estate of LRH.
- This means that RTC and CST have lost their suppressive control over the
churches and individual Scientologists.
- It also means that the probate case could be re-opened and the estate of
LRH could be passed to his rightful heirs. Who, we trust, would not use
their rights suppressively.
Perhaps they would do the humane thing, and put them all in the public
domain. So that any being who wished to set himself free, could use them, as
LRH intended. And, ensuring that a private clique could not then again
establish a monopoly, with attendant abuses, such as we have just witnessed.
Proving fraud:
Miscavige/RTC have made public statements that all the technology has been
available in a “pure, unadulterated” form. That is a lie that is easily
proven to be a lie.
They have publicly announced that they carried out a project wherein they
checked all LRH issues against the handwritten originals. That is another lie
that is easily proven to be a lie.
Proving it is the fact that they refuse to place a copy of the handwritten
originals in the Qual library for any Scientologist to see for himself if
their issues follow the handwritten originals. They know they did not follow
his handwritten originals and their changes and their issues are not a
duplication of the handwritten originals. So, they can’t allow us to see the
handwritten originals because we would find out they are squirrels.
The fact that they keep re-releasing the same issues with new changes -
proves they do not follow handwritten originals. Because if you were following
handwritten originals, there would never be any changes or new releases of any
issue from the first time it was issued, on into eternity.
Also, all issues where they wrote the issue themselves, proves they do not
follow handwritten originals.
But, where we really have them is the LRH tapes they altered. They cannot
escape that one because the tapes are in LRH’s voice. And a side-by-side
comparison of the original LRH tape release, compared to their release of the
tape, proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that they altered LRH and did not make
it available in a “pure, unadulterated form”, as they fraudulently claim.
This all boils down to the truth that they are squirrels.
And, they have committed fraud. And, it can be proven in court.
Giving the devil his due for a moment, and pretending that LRH did
knowingly give RTC/CST his estate (which we believe he did not) - take a look
at the articles of incorporation for RTC and CST. Look at what LRH was
agreeing to. That RTC and CST were to keep him as the sole source of the
technology.
He never agreed that they could go off-source and alter his issues, or
invent their own.
Therefore, they have broken their legal contract with LRH. Which voids it. (Criminal Time Track:
Issue III)
David Miscavige, Chairman of the Board of the Religious Technology Center - gave a speech to the
9th anniversary event of the International Association of Scientologists. 10,000 members of the International Association of Scientologists had gathered in the Los
Angeles Sports Arena to hear Miscavige announce a spectacular victory: After 30 years of conflict with the
Internal Revenue Service (IRS), the Church of Scientology
(CoS) had won complete tax exemption for all of its 150 US entities.
Quotes:
- Tonight you are here to get word of what has been promoted as our biggest breakthrough on the fourth dynamic ever! Let me begin by assuring you that is not an overstatement! I feel safe in stating that if you were to take all of our previous external wins - those over the last four decades - and combine them all into one, they wouldn't even approach the magnitude of what I will announce tonight.
- We usually cover many different activities. Tonight will be different. Because what we are going to talk about is the
war to end all wars.
-
We did meet with the commissioner, and, as the saying goes - the rest is
history.
-
There will be no billion dollar tax bill which we can't pay.
-
There will be no more discrimination.
-
There will be no more 2,500 cases against parishioners across the US.
-
The pipeline of IRS false reports won't keep flowing across the planet
There will be no more nothing - because:
-
On October first, 1993, at 8:37 p.m. Eastern Standard Time, the IRS issued
letters recognizing Scientology and every one of its organizations as fully
tax exempt!
-
The war is over!
...
And what about all those battles and wars still being fought overseas -
many of which were brought about originally by IRS false reports. Well,
there's good news on that front too. To begin with, we will waste no time
carrying news of this new breakthrough to all foreign countries. Those
battles have been being held in place by suppressive governments just
quoting the IRS.
The line has been:
"You are an American religion. If the IRS doesn't recognize you, why should
we?"
The answer is -
"They do. And now, you better as well!"
Make no mistake - there is much work to be done on those fronts. But we
have already taken the first steps in using this IRS victory to end the
rest of the battles. What about all of the false reports I mentioned
tonight? We are now in possession of them and will be receiving many more
documents out of our files. We will diligently work to clean up all false
reports.
But there is another step that will go a long way in cleaning up the false
representations the IRS has made about us. The IRS has agreed to send out
leaflets to the governments of every nation. These letters will state that
they have done a thorough review of all Scientology activities from top to
bottom and having found nothing wrong - fully recognize us as a bona-fide
and qualified tax exempt organization to the full extent of the law.
Furthermore, they will be attaching to each of these letters a printed fact
sheet on Scientology that explains what Scientology really is. Who LRH is,
and what all of our organizations are. It is very complete and very
accurate. How do I know?
We wrote it!
And the IRS will be sending it out to every government in the world! Even
Interpol will receive our fact sheet directly from the IRS. That's what it
looks like!
(visual)
... The real thing I want you to understand is that we
didn't just get exemption - we ended a war.
We wanted to end all conflicts, to have a fresh start - to get rid of any
potential future conflicts so some SP couldn't start it all up again. It
took time. It took a lot of work. It resulted in a peace treaty. I even
brought a copy of it to show you. This represents what it took to resolve
each and every outstanding conflict with the IRS.
...Here is a photo. It shows the handshake when this was all over: (picture)
Represented in this picture are each and every person from the IRS side and
our side. But I have another picture to show you. It is this one.
(picture)
You can see how happy Norman, Heber, Marty and myself are. But who is that
giving the thumbs up on the left? That's right - the IRS. Let me be clear.
These people - once our enemy - now see us as friends. And for my part, the
feeling is mutual. ... But I would like to thank 3 individuals who were there
on the front lines helping to fight this battle.
They are Marty Rathbun, Norman Starkey and Heber Jentzsch.
...But
we have many fine people, names that are now famous in Scientology - like
Earle Cooley, Bill Drescher, Eric Lieberman, Michael Hertzberg
and others. But for fighting this war, we have some professionals who
specifically should be acknowledged.
...But I can tell you with absolute certainty there isn't an individual more
hated by the Department of Justice or the Internal Revenue Service today.
He truly brought them to tears. They are both being presented with a trophy
that is inscribed:
"Truth knows no impenetrable barrier and only truth pierces the thickest
armor. With sincere appreciation to Bill Walsh and Rick Moxon who pierced
the armor."
...The final three awards are for some individuals who have been directly
involved in the war with the IRS for the last 8 years. Not a few battles.
But every one of them.
..."With deepest appreciation to Jerry Feffer, Tom Spring, and Monique
Vingling, who paid the price."
... I am declaring a general amnesty for all Scientologists.
Except for suppressive acts, any and all offenses committed are forgiven.
Full details of this amnesty will be made available to you. Avail yourself of it.
(David Miscavige's IAS speech, 8 October 1993)
APn - IRS-Scientology
LOS ANGELES (AP) -- The Internal Revenue Service says
it has granted tax exempt status to the Church of Scientology, ending a
lengthy battle with the organization founded by the late L. Ron Hubbard.
"We're extremely pleased, we're ecstatic, we're
thrilled," said Marty Rathbun, president of Religious Technology
Center, an arm of the church that holds its trademarks.
The IRS granted the exemptions Oct. 1, IRS spokesman Frank
Keith said Tuesday night.
"We were able to make this legal determination because
over the last many months the church provided adequate and detailed
information to the IRS to enable us to make the legal determination they were
entitled to tax exemption -- that they were organizations operated exclusively
for religious and charitable purposes," Keith said.
The IRS said it granted tax exempt status to "various
entities within the hierarchy" of the church, but Rathbun said
essentially the entire church was affected.
"We can now end what was a 40-year war," he said.
The IRS recognized the Church of Scientology of California as
a tax-exempt religious organization in 1957, but revoked that exemption in
1967.
In March, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled unanimously that the
church could continue its battle to regain documents and tape recordings
obtained in an IRS investigation of Hubbard.
In Washington DC, the IRS
formally announces exemptions for about 150 Scientology entities. Remarkably, this includes at least one body
which is an explicitly for-profit commercial
organisation: the IRS accepts that the publication of
Hubbard books by Bridge Publications is a charitable
activity. The IRS declares the agreement secret, despite
its legal obligation under Internal Revenue Code section
6104 to disclose information submitted to the IRS by
tax-exempt organizations. Ref: Closing agreement
on final determination covering specific matters, 1 Oct
1993
(Timeline of Scientology versus the IRS)
Library of Congress records show that: CSI copyrights their squirrel
version of LRH Clearing Congress lectures. (Criminal Time Track:
Issue III, (68))
The consumer affairs group
Tax Analysts submits a Freedom of Information request to
obtain the exemption agreement. Ref: Tax
Analysts press release, 26 June 1995
(Timeline of Scientology versus the IRS)
APn - Clinton-Religious Freedom
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Reversing a Supreme Court decision he said threatened the nation's "first freedom," President Clinton signed a bill Tuesday making it harder for government to interfere with religious practices.
A broad coalition of civil liberties and religious groups, who foresaw autopsies forced on families and cities meddling in church construction, said the law is the most important for religious freedom since the adoption of the Bill of Rights.
...
Among the groups on hand for the ceremony were the National Association of Evangelicals, the American Civil Liberties Union, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, the American Jewish Committee, the Baptist Joint Committee and the Church of Scientology International.
Norman Starkey, Trustee of Author’s Family Trust-B, transfers
ownership of all LRH copyrighted works to CST. This includes the agreements
with RTC, allowing RTC use of the Advanced Technology. (Criminal Time Track:
Issue III, (60))
The Library of Congress records show that on this date: Norman Starkey, trustee for Author’s Family Trust –B, transfers
copyrights for:
"Model of OT ship organization and operation based on 7 division system
& 7,730 other titles." Full document range: (In V2927 P238-724) LRH’s Professional Scientologist Newsletter Vol 1 no. 4. B287706 (In V2927
P636 thru 646) to the Church of Spiritual Technology.
Note: This was mandated by the secret agreement that Miscavige made with the
IRS. (Criminal Time Track:
Issue III, (7))
In an EXCLUSIVE 1997 STORY, the PUBLIC RESEARCH FOUNDATION
reported that Meade Emory--former Assistant to the Commissioner of the Internal
Revenue Service and former Legislation Attorney, Joint Committee on
Taxation--had been a co-founder of CST, Scientology's most senior coporation.
That corporation now controls the copyrights for all of L. Ron Hubbard's
intellectual properties, once valued at close to $100 million. CST also enjoys
ultimate authority over all Scientology-related trademarks, including even the
name "L. Ron Hubbard."
But the discovery of Emory, a non-Scientologist, in such an
unusual position raised red flags, since Emory's involvement in setting up the
corporation had been hidden for fifteen years.
Then it was learned that Emory had been Assistant to
Commissioner of IRS Donald C. Alexander from 1975 through 1977. Strangely, those
were the very years that an IRS employee, Gerald Wolfe, was supposedly a
Scientology "double agent" guilty of numerous thefts of IRS documents
for Mary Sue Hubbard and the Guardian's Office--leading to the arrests and
convictions.
Other oddities also surfaced:
-
According to a U.S. Claims Court ruling, none of the
founders of CST but one had any religious connection with Scientology. They
were non-Scientologist tax and probate attorneys.
-
The October 1993 IRS tax-exemption for CST was granted in
a then-secret Closing Agreement only after a final round-up of every
intellectual property ever produced by L. Ron Hubbard had been completed.
-
On November 29, 1993, scarcely two months after CST had
been granted tax exemption by IRS in a secret Closing Agreement, all 7,730
of L. Ron Hubbard’s copyrights were quietly transferred to CST.
PRF's original press release and supporting documents about
Meade Emory's ties to CST were sent to major newspapers--including the Wall
Street Journal--and to Senator William V. Roth, Jr., Finance Committee Chairman
and Vice Chairman of the Joint Committee on Taxation. Within 15 days the secret
agreement between IRS and CST, et al. was leaked to WSJ, who never ran the story
on Emory. But the IRS Closing Agreement, once released, revealed that it had
been the final step in the United States government's 20-year campaign to
secretly get L. Ron Hubbard's copyrighted technologies and techniques--being
illegally used by federal agencies in strategic intelligence--firmly under
secret federal government control. Putting the copyrights in a 501(c)(3)
corporation bypassed the separation clause of the Constitution, because CST,
despite its name, is not a church.
So certain was the IRS that the secret agreement would never
be exposed that it included a "Continued Conspiracy Clause," requiring
all signatories to agree in collusion to protect Meade Emory and all other
"current or former" employees of IRS and the United States government
against any and all claims of their having been involved in a "continued
conspiracy." Yet it was just such a "continued conspiracy" that
apparently had brought the secret Closing Agreement into being.
The federal government further secured its position by
secretly setting up an illegal and unconstitutional "Church Tax Compliance
Committee" to enforce Treasury regulations on the structure and function of
the various Scientology organizations, including permanent installations of
"Tax Compliance Officers" in each organization. (Public Research Foundation:
Press Release: 29.8.2000)
APn - People
BONN, Germany (AP) -- Jazz pianist Chick Corea filed a discrimination lawsuit against a state government for canceling a concert because he belongs to the Church of Scientology.
Corea said in the lawsuit filed Thursday that he wants Baden-Wuerttemberg to admit they practiced religious discrimination. He was to perform in Stuttgart during the Track and Field World Championships in August.
Baden-Wuerttemberg officials said Scientology is a cult that brainwashes its members and led them to order a booking agent to cancel Corea's concert.
Corea, 52, isn't seeking money in the lawsuit, said Ulrich Katzschmann, a Scientology official in Frankfurt.
APn - Scientology-Finances
Copyright 1993 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
The information contained in this news report may not be republished or redistributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press.
By KIM I. MILLS
Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Church of Scientology holds assets of nearly $400
million, including a cruise ship used as a "seagoing religious retreat," according to a detailed portrait of the group's financial network provided to the
Internal Revenue Service.
The papers, which fill nine file boxes, were submitted by the church as part of its 39-year effort to gain tax-exempt status. The documents became public after the IRS granted an exemption to more than 20 Scientology organizations on Oct. 1.
The papers offer an unprecedented public view of the huge organization, which includes two publishing houses, a 2,845-acre California ranch used as a school for the children of church staffers and more than 45 buildings on 500 acres in Riverside County, Calif.
Other assets include reinforced vaults designed to preserve the church's teachings in case of earthquake or nuclear attack, the documents said.
(see: 1992, 11.2., 1992, 16.3.)
The assets reported in the various documents filed with the IRS totaled $398 million.
The Los Angeles-based church does not keep combined balance sheets but "the combined total, if kept, would be somewhere in the range you list," Scientology spokeswoman Leisa Goodman said in a written response to questions.
...
None of the IRS letters in the files explained the legal reasoning behind granting tax exemption this year. Some noted, however, that the IRS found no evidence of "inurement," or private enrichment, which is barred under the tax law governing religions and charitable organizations.
IRS spokesman Frank Keith said the agency concluded the church "is operated exclusively for religious and charitable purposes."
According to the documents, most church officials receive modest salaries. David Miscavige, director of the Religious Technology Center and holder of the highest ecclesiastical position in Scientology, was listed as being paid $62,684 in 1991 and $34,779 in 1992.
Several Scientologists, however, earned six-figure commissions for raising donations to church entities, including the International Association of Scientologists, according to the filings.
One, identified in the documents as Barry Klein, was paid $217,694 in 1989 and $201,314 in 1990, the records show. Another named in the documents as Ken Pirak made $407,052 in 1991, and a third identified as Steve Grant earned $339,978 that year, the records said.
Goodman called those figures "somewhat inaccurate" because "the amount paid to them represents commissions for themselves and all staff employed by them." She said the commissions could be divided among as many as five or 10 staff members.
The 440-foot cruise ship Freewinds is operated by Scientology's Flag Ship Service Organization as "a safe, distraction-free environment for the ministry of the highest and most confidential Scientology auditing level," FSSO said in its application for tax exemption.
...
Documents valued the ship at $12.5 million for insurance purposes, and said it can accommodate 300 passengers and a crew of 129. The filing described the Freewinds as having "very limited recreational facilities -- only one small pool, used four or five hours sporadically throughout the day; one volleyball court, used one hour a day, if that; one basketball hoop, which might be used a half-hour each day, and no shuffleboard or tennis courts. ... Gambling is not permitted and alcohol is not served to either passengers or crew."
...
One entity, the Church of Spiritual Technology, reported spending nearly $13 million in 1992 to preserve his writings and lectures.
It has designed gas-filled, titanium time capsules to hold Hubbard's teachings, and plans to place 10,500 of the capsules in three vaults, two built to resist earthquakes or nuclear attack, according to the documents.
Hubbard's writings will be preserved on 1.8 million stainless steel plates and his lectures on 187,000 nickel records that could be played back with a stylus as crude as a thorn in the event of some future cataclysm, the documents said.
This division also plans to place large, indestructible obelisks around the world covered with pictographs explaining Scientology "so that even a wandering savage will be able to understand and apply these principles," the documents said.
Marty Rathbun blew his post. He was brought back and held captive at the
Freewinds. Later he is Inspector General of RTC. (Criminal Time Track:
Issue III, (13))
Note: That’s funny. Right after the big "IRS win"? What does Marty know about "the win" that we don’t?
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1993