Can you advise about Australian law and if we can also help lobby the soc for the UK as well?
Would really appreciate your advice.

Thanks 😊

That’s why SCOTUS said $cientology was a quid pro quo business in their Hernandez v. Commissioner, 490 U.S. 680 (1989) decision. A decision which has never been overturned, only ignored by the IRS.

1) The religion does not make the parishioners sign legal agreements of any kind when it relates to the results of the religious practices of that religion, or non religion practices of that religion on the follower of that religion.

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If this cannot fly, as a criteria, then another category, “Irreligious Requirements Criteria” I think this 1) above should fit inside.

Requiring “Legal Agreements” be signed prior to a religion allowing a follower to engage in that religion’s practices within that “official” religion, are grounds to call that legal agreement signing as a “Irreligious Requirement”

So, if a Criteria point isn’t one a Tax Office can legally use to deny a religion tax exemption, then that Criteria point ought to fall into then arguable a “Irreligious Requirement Criteria” so that the public knows what they are getting into, and take note of such requirements.

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This is all historically to expand on the Professor Kent papers on the non religious aspects of Scientology.

And expand really on Massimo Introvigne’s offering up “criminal religious organization” as a sort of beyond the pale final label which if a religion gets that far, they lose their tax exemption.

In US history were there some precedents, laid out, in an instructive book, giving the legal precedents the “other way” meaning countering religious groups who have lost their tax exemption, and how, in simple language so that newly, those “religious” tax exempt groups, here in the US and worldwide, relevant info how they lost their tax exemption, is spread.

Then people who’ve been hurt irreligiously by tax exempt “religions” can at least be informed of what other successes have been accumulating.

A one stop book would be useful, I think.

And an edition which could be updated every five years.

We need new types of books in the world, ones that stand the text of time, and have accumulating history.

I wish life were longer, and somehow there developed some institutions that put out more relevant books on subjects like “religions” which act so irreligiously they lose their tax exemptions, etc.

“How To Report On Irreligious Behavior by Your Religion, for Laypeople”

Mike,
In several videos shot in China, Massimo Introvigne did mention his wish to replace the word “cult” with “criminal religious organizations” and I think that is a useful new label that even the lobbyists for new religions would have to accept arguing over which “new religions” warrant this label.
Really, a criteria for when a religion loses its tax exemption, that should even become an argument taken up by the religion lobbyists.

If I recall correctly, the plot of The Blues Brothers movie was driven by a property tax bill. (“I hate Illinois Nazis.”) Before the Ideal Org Program Scientology used to have an Org next to a CBS affiliated television station on the Nicollet Mall (The part of Nicollet Avenue that ran through Downtown Minneapolis).

Pick, good point. Also, how can they pay sales commissions to members on those ‘fixed donations’ for essential ‘religious’ items and services from ‘scripture’ to ‘counseling’ – which are so overpriced to begin with, the commission alone is often about equal to the normal real world value of it.

And on top of that, the overpriced things members get large commissions on, are produced and delivered by ‘religious’ workers paid only a small fraction of even minimum wage – on the order of what prison convicts get paid for labor.

Les, a lot of churches couldn’t make it these days if they had to pay property taxes. But that and any other privileges should be granted based on being open to the public and providing a public benefit as it has always been generally understood religious institutions do, not running more like a private club for those of means and with a lavishly inured leadership the way the CofS does.

And I’m not necessarily for such institutions getting anything other than essential property and income tax breaks. But also, if places of worship couldn’t afford their longstanding buildings in city centers where property values are high, we’d lose a lot of services provided to urban communities as well as historic buildings.

NO church deserves government funding let alone tax exemptions, but as long as politicians are shit scared of upsetting potential voter bases then the whole crooked system will continue unabated.