The Armstrong Op

Scientology's fair game on Gerry Armstrong

Introduction 

  • about the Armstrong Op
  • The Documents
    • Legal documents
    • IRS
    • FBI
    • Media articles
    • Cult documents
    • Correspondence
    • Other writings
  • The Loyalist Program
    • The Illegal Videos
  • Check Forgery Frame
    • Michael J. Flynn
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A letter to Mike Rinder: Your victim speaks up (Part 7) February 27, 2018

February 26, 2018 by Clerk1

Hubbard advertised and made others advertise that he was “mankind’s greatest friend.” He published and made others publish what they all said was an authentic, heroic, supermanic biography. He promised and made others promise fabulous results for his technology and religion. Should we have believed and trusted him, or any of his agents or spokespersons, at any time? Emphatically no! We should have challenged him and his people, and we should have observed and challenged how they reacted to challenge and handled or treated their challengers. And we should challenge them now, and continue to challenge them.

Even before he announced Scientology to the world, Hubbard lied about his benevolence, his intentions, his history, his research, his abilities, his products, his statistics. You, Mike, were Hubbard and Scientology’s spokesperson for many years, and you knew from incontrovertible evidence no later than 1984 that Hubbard and his spokespersons were lying about these things. That is when these facts were litigated in your first lawsuit against me, and Hubbard was judicially declared a pathological liar. It is reported that you became a director of CSI in 1982, so you actually had access to this evidence, and were legally responsible for actions against me and other SP targets, from that date. Since then, you have been willfully lying in service of this man you knew to be a pathological liar, and you have never owned up to it. You happily victimized the people Hubbard or his pathologically lying successor David Miscavige wanted victimized.

Hubbard’s credibility, his claims about himself, his truthfulness, his history, his qualifications, and his claims for his technology are fundamental to why people were suckered into his cult, why they got fleeced, and why they remained there, abused and enslaved. You are significantly responsible for keeping the lying, fleecing, abuse and slavery working. You have treated or handled well-founded challenges and bona fide challengers just as Hubbard did, and Miscavige does, and Rathbun does – as the cowardly do. “Double curve,” “attack the attacker,” “black PR,” “fair game,” “silence or destroy,” and even “ignore tech” are all cowardly reactions to warranted challenge.

The ignore tech you, Rathbun, Miscavige, et al. practice in response to legitimate challenges does not show, as you would have people believe, that you are “above it all,” that you are morally superior to your challengers, and we are inconsequential “naysayers,” who aren’t worth you ignorers’ time, and only deserve ignoring. The Scientologists and their collaborators’ ignore tech is contemptuous and cowardly. It is proof of cowardice. You should be challenged, again and again. So should Leah Remini and A&E executives, who must have known you still serve the Scientologists’ malign purposes toward your victims, yet reward you richly, provide you cover for your criminality, and promote you as courageous when you know you’re being cowardly.

Years ago I recognized cowardice as the Scientologists’ Why for their continuing aggressive, antisocial actions toward their victims. For example:

[Jeffrey Augustine:] Why can’t Gerry make peace with the Indies?

[me] Because their terms are destructive. The Scientologists have to make peace with their victims.

The question is, why don’t the Scientologists make peace with their victims? LF

Cowardice. LFBD F/N This is really Scientology’s VFP.1

As I noted, cowardice is one of the Scientologists’ essential valuable final products, if not their most essential VFP, that they produce and enforce in their members and collaborators’ characters. Wikipedia says:

Moral character or character is an evaluation of an individual’s stable moral qualities. The concept of character can imply a variety of attributes including the existence or lack of virtues such as empathy, courage, fortitude, honesty, and loyalty, or of good behaviors or habits. Moral character primarily refers to the assemblage of qualities that distinguish one individual from another—although on a cultural level, the set of moral behaviors to which a social group adheres can be said to unite and define it culturally as distinct from others.2

For phonetic and syntactic parallelism, when listing the Scientologists’ eight character VFPs I’ve identified, I use “pusillanimity,” which is just a fancy synonym for common cowardice. This is from a 2015 response of mine to a letter to the Los Angeles Times from attorney and one of your coconspirators Monique Yingling:

In Scientology, crass merchandising, hard sell, deceit, fraud, hate, incarcerations, slavery, the destruction of human rights and persons, financial ruination, using the law to harass, black propaganda, and many other antisocial or criminal activities are religious exercise, or sacraments. The Scientologists lure good wogs into their cult with the wonderful promises of White Luciferianism, and then handle and hold them with Hubbard’s Black Luciferian “tech,” and do their damnedest to turn them into tough, dedicated, glaring Black Luciferians. While telling people their objective is to get everyone to “think for yourself,” the Scientologists compel cult personalities that must think as the cult head commands. Thinking for oneself or “other-intentionedness” is restrained and punished. While insisting that they are engendering virtuous or moral characters and behaviors in their members, the Scientologists actually instill the “valuable final products,” as they call them, of vanity, dishonesty, hypocrisy, perfidy, envy, pugnacity, malignity and pusillanimity.3

In his 2015 book Wages of Rebellion: The Moral Imperative of Revolt, which I highly recommend, writer, Presbyterian minister and activist Chris Hedges distinguishes between physical courage and moral courage.

To rebel requires that elusive virtue that Snowden exemplifies and that Melville’s Starbuck lacks — moral courage. I have been to war. I have seen physical courage. But this kind of courage is not moral courage. Very few of even the bravest warriors have moral courage. The person with moral courage defies the crowd, stands up as a solitary individual, shuns the intoxicating embrace of comradeship, and is disobedient to authority, even at the risk of his or her life, for a higher principle. And with moral courage comes persecution.

The US Army pilot Hugh Thompson had moral courage. He landed his helicopter between a platoon of US soldiers and ten terrified Vietnamese civilians during the My Lai massacre in 1968. He ordered his gunner to fire his M60 machine gun on the advancing US soldiers if they began to shoot the villagers. And for this act of moral courage, Thompson was hounded and reviled. Moral courage always looks like this. It is always defined by the state as treason— the Army attempted to cover up the massacre and threatened to court-martial Thompson. Moral courage is the courage to act and to speak the truth. Thompson had it. Daniel Ellsberg had it. Martin Luther King Jr. had it. What those in authority once said about them, they say today about Snowden. 4

The Scientology conspirators permit and even demand physical courage from Scientologists in many situations – hard labor, sleep deprivation, life-risking assignments, beatings, imprisonment, impoverishment, disaster site appearances, punishable criminality, etc. The conspirators, however, prohibit and suppress moral courage in Scientology in virtually every situation, and punish it as a high crime. Because I once defied Hubbard and his crowd, stood up as an individual, disobeyed his authority, and told the truth, he had his coconspiring juniors — you, Rathbun, Miscavige, et al. — persecute me, and you have been persecuting me ever since.

Notes

  1. http://gerryarmstrong.ca/j-swift-on-tony-ortegas-blog-lying-for-indies-whoever-they-are/ ↩
  2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_character ↩
  3. http://gerryarmstrong.ca/on-monique-yingling-alex-gibney-scientology-and-the-irs-deal/ ↩
  4. Chris Hedges, Wages of Rebellion (Toronto, ON: Vintage Canada, 2016), 59. ↩

Filed Under: Other writings Tagged With: Chris Hedges, cowardice, Jeffrey Augustine, Michael J. Rinder, Monique Yingling

Mike Rinder: Keeping the IRS tax exemption working (Part 2) (February 16, 2018)

February 16, 2018 by Clerk1

Rinder quotes Yingling’s February 1 letter and continues:

Now, let’s consider a few of her statements and some of the glaring omissions.

The unaddressed elephant in the room and the big thing missing from the IRS review: no mention of the enormous amount of money spent by scientology to spy on and try to destroy whistleblowers and critics. 1

Wikipedia says:

“Elephant in the room” is an English-language metaphorical idiom for an obvious problem or risk that no one wants to discuss, or a condition of groupthink that no one wants to challenge.2

The elephant in the room is always unaddressed. Once it’s actually addressed, it no longer is the elephant in the room. Addressing can be lied about or faked, in which case the elephant remains the elephant in the room.

What Rinder is floating is the dumbo in the room, an overblown fake elephant in the room.

I am a real, unmetaphorical whistleblower and critic, and victim, and wog. The real metaphorical elephant in the room is Rinder and his coconspirators’ conspiracy to spy on and try to destroy me — or silence me, or imprison me, or ruin me, or obliterate me. The same elephant – also called “Scientology v. Armstrong, the thirty-six year war,” or “the Armstrong Op” – occupies many rooms.

I can’t help that. I have never tried to be the elephant in any room. I have sought, as sensibly as possible, to not be the elephant in anyone’s room. I’m trying right now to end my endless elephant in the room beingness. It’s threatening and can be torture to be the elephant in anyone’s room, let alone the rooms of so many people who hate me so much.

No one in those rooms wants to discuss what the Scientologist conspirators – Hubbard, Miscavige, Rathbun, Rinder, Yingling, et al., the operators3— have done and are doing to me to silence or destroy me. Yet that elephant of a criminal campaign against my rights and my person is key to overturning the IRS tax exemption. I am going to be a problem and a risk to the conspirators until I’m dead, a condition that the conspirators doubtlessly desire. Even then, my record will be a problem and a risk, and an elephant in their rooms.

Funny, in 2012, Rathbun wrote an article to celebrate, he said, “the thirtieth anniversary of [his] introduction to the strange case of Gerry Armstrong,” and I used the “elephant in the room” idiom in a reply.

Seriously, Marty, is the Scientology v. Armstrong case conceivably strange? Is the elephant in the room ever really strange?

Or are there multiple elephants in the room, and my case is the strange one? 4

The enormous amount of money spent by the conspirators to violate public policy by spying on and trying to destroy whistleblowers and critics, etc. would be nice to know, but not at all necessary to know, probably irrelevant for rescission of the IRS tax exemption, virtually impossible to obtain, and not an elephant in any room.

That enormous amount of money can be adequately estimated from identifying and detailing the actions taken against persons. If the conspiracy spent, let’s say, fifteen million to silence or destroy me over thirty-six years, and there are, let’s say, five hundred whistleblowers or critics; then, let’s say, seven and a half billion. As Rinder observes, this “money is disguised and difficult to trace.” It is not the elephant in the room.

What Rinder did to me and to other human beings in violation of public policy, however, is easy to trace. Rinder possesses detailed high-level knowledge of it. So far, he has lied and refused to tell the truth about what exactly he did and made others do to us. It is obvious to me that, whatever he has said or claimed to be doing since saying he had left his conspiracy, he is keeping the unlawful IRS tax exemption working. He is keeping the unlawful injunction he obtained against me working, and he is keeping his black PR of me and others working.

I am glad Rinder is finally talking about public policy. I zeroed in on public policy years ago as the route in which to get the unlawfully obtained and unlawfully used IRS tax exemption pulled.5

From my introduction to the Armstrong op:

The “type of allegations that were being made” against the Scientologists, for which they sought and obtained the “First Amendment immunity” that came with IRS tax exemption, were the type of allegations made by the class of people who sued the Scientology entities, and whose cases the Scientologists identify in their submissions to the IRS. These types of allegations were what the [Fred T.] Goldberg IRS team had to have asked about in relation to the issue of the Scientologists’ violations of public policy in the service of their Scientology seniors.

Obviously the IRS accepted the negotiated statements that justify its grant of tax exemption. Obviously too, the IRS would not have granted the tax exemption without the negotiated statements. There are many pages I’ve now found of black PR on [my attorney Michael] Flynn and me that the IRS solicited, and knew to be false. The IRS did not contact me at any time to verify, refute, clarify or contextualize the Scientologists’ claims about me. Hubbard’s death took care of the inurement problem the Scientologists had with the IRS. But a criminal conspiracy does not take care of their public policy problem. It confirms that the tax exemption is unmerited and unlawful. 6

Notes

  1. https://www.mikerindersblog.org/scientology-tax-exemption-muffins-strikes-back/ ↩
  2. Wikipedia: Elephant in the room ↩
  3. See http://armstrong-op.gerryarmstrong.ca/the-operators/ ↩
  4. See http://gerryarmstrong.ca/my-thoughts-to-marty-rathbun-in-response-to-his-article-l-ron-hubbards-worst-enemy-part-ii/ ↩
  5. Here is a search of the Armstrong op site for “public policy:” http://armstrong-op.gerryarmstrong.ca/?s=public+policy ↩
  6. http://armstrong-op.gerryarmstrong.ca/about/ ↩

Filed Under: Other writings Tagged With: elephant in the room, Fred T. Goldberg Jr., IRS, Mark C. Rathbun, Michael Flynn, Michael J. Rinder, Mike Rinder, Monique Yingling, public policy

Mike Rinder: Keeping the IRS tax exemption working (Part 1) (February 14, 2018)

February 14, 2018 by Clerk1

I’m responding here to Mike Rinder’s February 5, 2018 blog1 about the IRS grant of tax exemption in 1993 to all of the entities in the David Miscavige Scientology sect.

Rinder is seemingly panning a February 1, 2018 letter-to-the-editor from Monique Yingling that the Los Angeles Times published online. Yingling is seemingly panning a November 16, 2017 op-ed by journalist James Kirchick, who seemingly pans the tax exemption.

I thought of responding to the Yingling letter, and then Rinder blogged his response. So I will respond to him. He could use a good panning.

Yingling is an important attorney, a tax attorney, in the Scientology planet-wide conspiracy against rights and persons. She and I go way back.

In 2015, the LA Times had published a similar letter from her attacking an op-ed, that time by filmmaker Alex Gibney, which had disputed the Miscavige entities exemption. I posted a response and informed Yingling and Gibney.2

The Armstrong Op site has a lot of information and documents concerning the Miscavigeite Scientologists’ criminal conspiracy against rights and persons, and the intertwined conspiracy that secured the Miscavigeites tax exemption and other undeserved benefits.3

I have identified Yingling as an “operator” — a coconspirator – in the very long “Armstrong operation,” which is the criminal conspiracy against my rights and person. Mike Rinder has been a very important coconspirator in the op almost from the beginning.

Rinder writes:

To be fair, [Yingling] WAS intimately involved in the ultimately successful effort to get the IRS to reverse itself and the Supreme Court and grant religious tax exempt status to scientology. So at least she knows something about the subject (as opposed to her claiming disconnection is a “personal choice” and “Fair Game was canceled.”) Then again, I was also intimately involved. Though scientology likes to pretend I held no senior positions and know nothing, I attended numerous meetings at the IRS during the exemption process and I oversaw the collection and preparation of all the documents presented to the IRS. So, I have a few opinions I would like to express in response to [Yingling]. 4

I was also intimately involved. I am the person Rinder most egregiously victimized, or fair gamed, prior to tax exemption, and after tax exemption. I am the person he most seriously and cruelly lied about in the documents he collected, prepared and presented to the IRS. I am a person he conspired with others, including Yingling, to silence or destroy, or fair game, in violation of US criminal statutes, civil rights laws and international human rights charters. I am a person Rinder has continued to black PR since claiming to have left his conspiracy and to be helping his victims. I am his victim that he has treated only contemptuously since he started claiming he’d left his conspiracy. So I also have opinions to express — and facts in support.

Rinder’s assertion that he oversaw the collection and preparation of all the documents presented to the IRS could be an important admission. It could also be a lie. Rinder has lied professionally for decades. He was paid to lie. He lied about me around the world. He lied under oath. He lied to criminally frame me. He lied to media, clergy, law enforcement, and governments. He lied to Scientologists and wogs. He has never corrected the lies he told to defame, drive insane, silence and destroy people who tell the truth about L. Ron Hubbard, Scientology and Scientologists. Rinder is not to be trusted until he tells the truth about victimizing wogs, which he has never done. In this context,  he and I share an acceptable definition: “the exact time, place, form and event.”

As I have shown many times, Rinder has continued to serve the Scientologist conspirators’ malignant purposes toward their wog victims, like me. It is easy to see that if Rinder is lying about overseeing the collection and preparation of all the documents presented to the IRS, this lie could serve the conspirators’ criminal purposes.

Accepting for now that he did in fact oversee the collection and preparation of all the documents presented to the IRS, this would mean that he oversaw the preparation and inclusion of all the half-truths, lies or black propaganda in all the submissions to the IRS on which the tax exemption is based, or is supposed to be based. I had not seen that Rinder had made that specific claim or admission since he has been claiming or pretending he’s speaking up, telling the truth, correcting his lies, correcting injustices, helping his victims, or otherwise doing the right thing.

If he is being truthful, for whatever reason, this means that Rinder is uniquely positioned – has unassailable standing — to refute and correct the lies, and eliminate the unlawfully obtained and unlawfully used IRS tax exemption. To do so, he would, of course, have to tell the truth.

He has had that unique position ever since he accepted the post and responsibility of overseeing the collection and preparation of all the documents presented to the IRS. As soon as he told one lie, he gained the unique position – the standing — to refute and correct it. He told many lies, many hateful and destructive lies, in the Scientologists’ submissions to the IRS to get their tax exemption. Despite gaining the unique position to refute and correct his false statements to the IRS as soon as he submitted them, and even assuming a duty to refute and correct his false statements, he has not done so.

He told those lies and obtained tax exemption for a criminal purpose – to create the color of law to shield his conspiracy against his victims’ rights and persons and award the conspirators untold millions more dollars to destroy more rights and more persons more thoroughly. He personally had the job and purpose to silence or destroy wogs who told the truth about Hubbard, Scientology and Scientologists. So he knew that he was lying, submitting false statements to the IRS and other US Federal departments, and fair gaming and black PRing truth-tellers for that unlawful purpose.

Rinder’s claim or admission that he oversaw the collection and preparation of all the documents presented to the IRS also means that my efforts over several years to get him to tell the truth have been vindicated. I am more justified in my determined and patient efforts than I even knew.

See, e.g., 26 U.S. Code § 7206 – Fraud and false statements

(1) Declaration under penalties of perjury

Willfully makes and subscribes any return, statement, or other document, which contains or is verified by a written declaration that it is made under the penalties of perjury, and which he does not believe to be true and correct as to every material matter; or

(2) Aid or assistance

Willfully aids or assists in, or procures, counsels, or advises the preparation or presentation under, or in connection with any matter arising under, the internal revenue laws, of a return, affidavit, claim, or other document, which is fraudulent or is false as to any material matter, whether or not such falsity or fraud is with the knowledge or consent of the person authorized or required to present such return, affidavit, claim, or document;

[…]

shall be guilty of a felony and, upon conviction thereof, shall be fined not more than $100,000 ($500,000 in the case of a corporation), or imprisoned not more than 3 years, or both, together with the costs of prosecution.5

Rinder cannot be trusted to refute or correct his lies in some secret setting with government agents. Just see what he and they negotiated last time they had their secret chums negotiation party. He has to refute and correct the lies he told about me to me in a form that is usable for public and legal purposes. He has to come clean to his victims. Mike Rinder’s victims’ lives matter.6

Notes

  1. See https://www.mikerindersblog.org/scientology-tax-exemption-muffins-strikes-back/ ↩
  2. My response to Monique Yingling’s letter: http://armstrong-op.gerryarmstrong.ca/on-monique-yingling-alex-gibney-scientology-and-the-irs-deal-2/ ↩
  3.   See the introduction to the op: http://armstrong-op.gerryarmstrong.ca/about/ ↩
  4. Retrieved from https://www.mikerindersblog.org/scientology-tax-exemption-muffins-strikes-back/ ↩
  5. Retrieved from https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/26/7206 ↩
  6. To be continued. ↩

Filed Under: Media articles Tagged With: IRS, Michael J. Rinder, Mike Rinder, Monique Yingling

Scientology Tax Exemption — Muffins Strikes Back (February 5, 2018)

February 5, 2018 by Clerk1

Posted by Mike Rinder1
February 5, 2018

Clearly, David Miscavige is feeling the mounting pressure on his most cherished treasure: tax exempt status bestowed on scientology by the IRS in 1993.

It takes considerable effort to get a letter published about a relatively obscure subject in a major paper like the LA Times. It is apparently a response to an op-ed piece that ran last November. 3 months of work to get this miserable piece of misleading propaganda to run…

Monique “Muffins” Yingling makes a rare appearance to argue on behalf of Miscavige.  She has been as out of sight as the COB himself since her fateful appearance on 20/20 bearing a basket of slave labor baked muffins while appearing to be trying to send morse code “Help Me” messages with her constant blinking. For some years she was the most prominent spokesperson for scientology, after Miscavige got rid of any actual scientologist to speak on behalf of his organization (can you imagine a non-Catholic being the public spokesperson for the Catholic church?). She was the only one he trusted other than himself, and he has made clear it is beneath him to trifle with the lowlife “Chaos Merchants.” So he sent his non-scientologist consigliere instead to defend the faith and practices of scientology — of which she has no personal experience.

But now, like all other scientology “spokes”people, she makes no public appearances but delivers exclusively written missives. No more “blinky.” No more off-the-cuff boo-boos.

To be fair, she WAS intimately involved in the ultimately successful effort to get the IRS to reverse itself and the Supreme Court and grant religious tax exempt status to scientology. So at least she knows something about the subject (as opposed to her claiming disconnection is a “personal choice” and “Fair Game was canceled.”) Then again, I was also intimately involved. Though scientology likes to pretend I held no senior positions and know nothing, I attended numerous meetings at the IRS during the exemption process and I oversaw the collection and preparation of all the documents presented to the IRS. So, I have a few opinions I would like to express in response to Muffins.

Here is her op-ed in its entirety:

In a Nov. 16 Los Angeles Times op-ed article, Daily Beast correspondent James Kirchick asks, “In the world of religious tax exemptions, does Scientology measure up?” The answer to that question is a resounding yes.

I was the Church of Scientology’s primary tax counsel in its successful efforts to obtain federal tax exemption, a status it fully and fairly earned and continues to merit. Unlike Kirchick, I know exactly whereof I speak.

The Church of Scientology is recognized by the Internal Revenue Service as tax exempt because it established to the agency’s satisfaction that it is organized and operates as a charitable religious organization. The church did not engage in a “ruthless battle to win a religious tax exemption”; rather, it simply worked continuously to demonstrate that it should be treated the same as other religious denominations.

The examination process resulting in exemption in 1993 was fully documented through an extensive administrative record that was then and is still available for the public to review; at 14 feet tall if the papers are stacked, the IRS’ record on the church is the largest in the history of exempt organizations. The IRS determined that the church’s operations fully qualified as tax exempt then, and its operations continue to warrant that determination today.

Scientology’s acceptance as a world religion has come quickly by historical measures.

Kirchick’s claim that “America’s recognition of Scientology as a religion stands as an anomaly in the Western world” is not true. There are judicial decisions from the highest courts in Australia, the United Kingdom and Italy, in addition to numerous decisions from lower courts in dozens of other countries, including Spain, France and Germany, all holding that Scientology is a religion. Indeed, many of these decisions have provided the modern definition of religion in their respective jurisdictions.

The Australian High Court’s unanimous decision in 1983 stands as the leading precedent throughout the British Commonwealth for the definition of religion and charity status. In another unanimous decision, the United Kingdom’s Supreme Court in 2013 not only recognized Scientology as a religion but also replaced that country’s Victorian-era definition of religion with a modern one that fully embraces Scientology. In 1997, the Supreme Court of Italy not only recognized the religiosity of Scientology, but also found the church’s fundraising practices to be fairer than those of the Roman Catholic Church. Scientology has been recognized as a religion by courts and governments across the globe, including most recently in Colombia last May and Mexico in November.

Kirchick did get one thing right in observing that Mormonism “was long considered a cult (its adherents the targets of episodic violence) but is now increasingly accepted by mainstream society as just another branch of Christianity.” This experience, however, is not unique to Mormons: History shows that virtually every new religious faith has been defamed, persecuted and suppressed by the society from which it emerged.

Before Constantine, the Roman Empire considered Christianity an obscure Jewish sect and a dangerous one at that. Genuine religions weather these storms and emerge even stronger because their adherents find sufficient value in the religious teachings to endure the attacks of religious bigots and the prejudice and discrimination they produce. This has proven true of Christianity and Mormonism and is continuing to prove true of Scientology.

Indeed, Scientology’s acceptance as a world religion has come quickly by historical measures. The church increasingly enjoys cooperative relations with numerous governments worldwide as well as with like-minded religious, social and humanitarian institutions in the communities it serves. Lost in a tabloid obsessed, click-bait culture is the real story of Scientology.

Monique Yingling is the Church of Scientology’s tax counsel.

Now, let’s consider a few of her statements and some of the glaring omissions.

The unaddressed elephant in the room and the big thing missing from the IRS review: no mention of the enormous amount of money spent by scientology to spy on and try to destroy whistleblowers and critics.

The money is disguised and difficult to trace because it is paid through law firms and scientology spends a LOT of money on lawyers. Hundreds of thousands if not millions of dollars a month. This is NOT a valid use of tax exempt funds (if it was just an isolated and occasional incident that is part of a lawsuit it might be acceptable but not a repeating, consistent pattern). It IS enough for the exempt status of scientology to be terminated.

The IRS did ask in general terms about scientology’s violations of “public policy” and the allegations of abusing critics — it was all sloughed off as “that was just the renegade activities of the Guardian’s Office which we disbanded.” There was no mention of the fact that the policy written by Hubbard has not changed and remains in force and followed today. The IRS did not review the policy. They did not delve into the activities or how much money was thrown at PI’s and covert operations.

Second thing the IRS did NOT know is how scientology is accumulating empty buildings. The basic concept of tax exemption is that the money you bring in is spent on things which benefit society. You cannot start up a tax exempt entity and simply accumulate billions of dollars. One valid expense is providing facilities for the membership and the community at large. Normally a religious organization (or any organization for that matter), acquires or builds facilities that it needs. The IRS doesn’t contemplate that if an organization is opening facilities “to serve its congregation” that these are not needed and that the tax exempt entity has simply converted itself into a real estate holding company.

In fact, the accumulation of empty buildings, if they are NOT used, is really no different than accumulating money in a bank account.

Scientology would prefer to buy buildings than spend money on normal “charitable” activities because they money STAYS on their balance sheet. The IRS is blind to this scam — there is an inherent fear within government agencies of being accused of intrusion into religious affairs in violation of the First Amendment. So they tend to ignore this.

But let’s look a bit broader. The entire basis of Muffins piece is this: Where bad arguments against scientology’s tax exemption go to die: courts of law

Yet nobody has challenged scientology’s exemption in a US Court. The US SUPREME court determined that payments to scientology should NOT be tax deductible because they are a quid pro quo transaction and not a donation (See Hernandez v. Commissioner). With this as the law of the land it would be interesting to see how a court would rule on a challenge to the IRS determination that such donations ARE deductible and scientology entities are tax exempt. I suspect the bad arguments of scientology would go to die in a US court, just as they did in the Hernandez case.

Ms. Yingling conflates two things that she KNOWS are not the same. Determination that scientology is or is not a religion is NOT the same as a determination whether it qualifies for tax exempt status under the religious exemption contained in the Internal Revenue Code. Muffins proclaims “it should be treated the same as other religious denominations” — not so fast Muffy. You can be a religion and NOT qualify for tax exempt status. All religions are NOT the same. Your religion might well be recognized by scholars, but if your activities are violating public policy (for example, ingesting cocaine as a religious sacrament while claiming God is manifested in the leaf of the coca plant) then you are NOT entitled to tax exempt status. Let’s not forget, Scientology is NOT like other religions — they don’t have written policies to destroy critics, harass them with PI’s and operate a dirty tricks department.

The examination process resulting in exemption in 1993 was fully documented through an extensive administrative record that was then and is still available for the public to review; and you will find no mention of how much money is spent on harassing/intimidating/threatening whistleblowers or critics. Nor copies of the Hubbard writings about this. Nor information on how much money is spent annually on these activities. The “largest record in the history of the IRS” is missing some extremely important information. Scientology overwhelmed the IRS with information — they lost sight of important factors in the deluge of paper.

The IRS determined that the church’s operations fully qualified as tax exempt then, and its operations continue to warrant that determination today. How about the lies that were told the IRS in the course of the proceedings? Even beyond the omissions. Like this one:

It has been a long-standing policy of the Church that if someone is dissatisfied with their Scientology services and asks to have their contributions returned within a three month period, these amounts will be returned. Likewise, if the person asks for return of contributions for which no services were received (i.e. an advance payment), there is no three month limitation period. Anyone newly enrolling in services at a Church of Scientology is informed of the policies and signs an agreement to abide by them. As a further condition of receiving a refund or repayment, the person understands that they may not again receive services from the Church.

Within the Church, there are two separate terms: A “refund” refers to a return of contributions to a parishioner within 90 days of participating in religious services while a “repayment” refers to a return of a parishioner’s advance payment before he or she has participated in religious services. For simplicity, the following discussion will use the term “refund” to describe both types of transactions, because both involve a return of parishioner contributions.

The Church’s refund policy is exceedingly fair. If someone isn’t happy with Scientology — which is a very small minority of people — he simply has to make a proper request for his donations back, agree to forego further services and his donations will be returned. For the Church, in addition to the fact that this policy aligns with Scientology principles of exchange, it also serves the purpose of allowing our churches and the parishioners who are very happy with Scientology, to carry on without the unhappy few in their midst.

Clearly, this is NOT what scientology actually does. There are plenty of other things the IRS was NOT aware of and didn’t ask about like the relationship of the IAS to participation in scientology. Another key issue the IRS was hoodwinked about.

There are judicial decisions from the highest courts in Australia, the United Kingdom and Italy, in addition to numerous decisions from lower courts in dozens of other countries, including Spain, France and Germany, all holding that Scientology is a religion. Indeed, many of these decisions have provided the modern definition of religion in their respective jurisdictions. Here she goes again, conflating two things that are NOT the same, pretending they are (and of course NOT mentioning the highest court in the United States).

Scientology is specifically NOT exempt from taxation in the UK and other countries, even though for other purposes it may be recognized as a religion. Why? Because tax exempt status does not automatically flow from religious status. In fact, there is a public benefit test to qualify for tax exemption conducted by the “Charity Commission” in the UK. If you cannot demonstrate to the satisfaction of the Charity Commission that your religious organization benefits society beyond whatever claimed benefit it provides its members, you are not exempt. This is the fundamental theory of tax exemption. Governments do not tax activities that are providing a public benefit because were they NOT being provided by that entity, the government would have to provide those services. Such a test is not part of the law in the US — though it should be. The principle is similar and some of the rules are similar in the US — as in you cannot be engaged in activities that are in violation of “public policy” and you cannot accumulate too much money instead of using it for the public good — there is no public benefit test.

The Australian High Court’s unanimous decision in 1983 stands as the leading precedent throughout the British Commonwealth for the definition of religion and charity status. More of the straw man argument. This decision does NOT bestow tax exempt (charitable) status on scientology organizations in the vast majority of the British Commonwealth, including the seat of the Commonwealth in the United Kingdom.

Genuine religions weather these storms and emerge even stronger because their adherents find sufficient value in the religious teachings to endure the attacks of religious bigots and the prejudice and discrimination they produce. This has proven true of Christianity and Mormonism and is continuing to prove true of Scientology. Well, no it is not. Scientology is smaller today than it was 10 years ago, and 10 years ago it was smaller than it was 20 years ago. Scientology has been shrinking since the 1980’s. It is not emerging stronger. It is fading away. While accumulating more and more money.

The church increasingly enjoys cooperative relations with numerous governments worldwide as well as with like-minded religious, social and humanitarian institutions in the communities it serves. And once again, this has NOTHING to do with whether it should or should not have tax exempt status. As an aside, it also not true.

For 25 years, scientology has rested its legitimacy (and a lot of its income) on its tax exempts status. Clearly, this is a huge vulnerability — lose it and the pretense of being legitimate dies. And it will happen — eventually scientology’s Fair Game chickens are coming home to roost. Miscavige knows his house of cards is built on quicksand and it’s toppling and he is desperate to avoid this at all costs. Watch the madness and lies escalate as the inevitable draws closer.

The only question is what will be the final catalyst: a lawsuit? A criminal investigation? Congressional action? Or the IRS awakening from its quarter century slumber?

Notes

  1. https://www.mikerindersblog.org/scientology-tax-exemption-muffins-strikes-back/ ↩

Filed Under: Cult documents Tagged With: David Miscavige, IRS, James Kirchick, Michael J. Rinder, Monique Yingling

LA Times Opinion: Where bad arguments against Scientology’s tax exemption go to die: courts of law (February 8, 2018)

February 1, 2018 by Clerk1

By Monique Yingling
Posted 8 February 20181

In a Nov. 16 Los Angeles Times op-ed article, Daily Beast correspondent James Kirchick asks, “In the world of religious tax exemptions, does Scientology measure up?” The answer to that question is a resounding yes.

I was the Church of Scientology’s primary tax counsel in its successful efforts to obtain federal tax exemption, a status it fully and fairly earned and continues to merit. Unlike Kirchick, I know exactly whereof I speak.

The Church of Scientology is recognized by the Internal Revenue Service as tax exempt because it established to the agency’s satisfaction that it is organized and operates as a charitable religious organization. The church did not engage in a “ruthless battle to win a religious tax exemption”; rather, it simply worked continuously to demonstrate that it should be treated the same as other religious denominations.

The examination process resulting in exemption in 1993 was fully documented through an extensive administrative record that was then and is still available for the public to review; at 14 feet tall if the papers are stacked, the IRS’ record on the church is the largest in the history of exempt organizations. The IRS determined that the church’s operations fully qualified as tax exempt then, and its operations continue to warrant that determination today.

Kirchick’s claim that “America’s recognition of Scientology as a religion stands as an anomaly in the Western world” is not true. There are judicial decisions from the highest courts in Australia, the United Kingdom and Italy, in addition to numerous decisions from lower courts in dozens of other countries, including Spain, France and Germany, all holding that Scientology is a religion. Indeed, many of these decisions have provided the modern definition of religion in their respective jurisdictions.

The Australian High Court’s unanimous decision in 1983 stands as the leading precedent throughout the British Commonwealth for the definition of religion and charity status. In another unanimous decision, the United Kingdom’s Supreme Court in 2013 not only recognized Scientology as a religion but also replaced that country’s Victorian-era definition of religion with a modern one that fully embraces Scientology. In 1997, the Supreme Court of Italy not only recognized the religiosity of Scientology, but also found the church’s fundraising practices to be fairer than those of the Roman Catholic Church. Scientology has been recognized as a religion by courts and governments across the globe, including most recently in Colombia last May and Mexico in November.

Kirchick did get one thing right in observing that Mormonism “was long considered a cult (its adherents the targets of episodic violence) but is now increasingly accepted by mainstream society as just another branch of Christianity.” This experience, however, is not unique to Mormons: History shows that virtually every new religious faith has been defamed, persecuted and suppressed by the society from which it emerged.

Before Constantine, the Roman Empire considered Christianity an obscure Jewish sect and a dangerous one at that. Genuine religions weather these storms and emerge even stronger because their adherents find sufficient value in the religious teachings to endure the attacks of religious bigots and the prejudice and discrimination they produce. This has proven true of Christianity and Mormonism and is continuing to prove true of Scientology.

Indeed, Scientology’s acceptance as a world religion has come quickly by historical measures. The church increasingly enjoys cooperative relations with numerous governments worldwide as well as with like-minded religious, social and humanitarian institutions in the communities it serves. Lost in a tabloid obsessed, click-bait culture is the real story of Scientology.

Monique Yingling is the Church of Scientology’s tax counsel.

Notes

  1. http://www.latimes.com/opinion/readersreact/la-ol-scientology-tax-exempt-20180201-story.html ↩

Filed Under: Legal Tagged With: IRS, James Kirchick, Los Angeles Times, Monique Yingling

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