All of all of this mention of the RICO statute (racketeering is discussed and defined in extreme detail in 18 U.S.C. §§ 95, 96) probably involves, in some way, the cult’s current tax-exempt status, which is something that David Miscavige has proven that he’ll defend until his dying breath. After all, tax exemption is worth multiple millions per year to the dude. In 1954, L. Ron Hubbard organized Scientology as a religion but refused to admit defeat in 1967 when “it was stripped of its tax exempt status by the IRS,” on the “grounds that Scientology was not so much a religion as a money-making venture.” No shit.
The next few decades saw “Operation Show White,” which was followed by the cult “siccing personal investigators on individual IRS employees and filing more than 2,000 separate lawsuits against the agency.” In 1991, despite the defeat of Scientology at the U.S. Court of Appeals level, the IRS caved:
Former IRS exempt organizations specialist and tax journalist Paul Streckfus says that the IRS simply cracked from the pressure Scientology had been applying for so many years.
“The IRS found that Scientology was more than they could handle,” Streckfus says. “We think of the IRS as so powerful, but by 1991, the commissioner of the time, Fred Goldberg, decided that the case was tying up the IRS. Scientology seemed to have limitless money, so I think Goldberg decided he wanted to get rid of the case and to hell with it. He directed his people to get the best deal that they could.”
“The war is OVER!” Miscavige said in his Los Angeles speech, and at one point referred to a “billion dollar tax bill” that Scientology would not have to pay.
After all of that, Scientology will never accept a removal of its tax-exempt status. Giving up the fight would be like admitting that Scientology it isn’t really a religion, which would be the death of this little moneymaking operation. This twisted logic makes any and all millions spent on litigation worth it to these crackheads. So, if anyone thinks that Miscavage and his right-hand man of Scientology, Tom Cruise, will ever give up their priceless tax exemption status, these assumptions would be sorely mistaken.
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In other news…. Anonymous has orchestrated a massive dox drop to the FBI of the cult’s harassment, private investigators and bogus “cease and desist” letters; and the August 16th global protest will be something. Stuff in the works. For your enjoyment…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nl7MRZL44oU
Amazing stuff. I think if nothing else we may have seen the high water mark of Scientology, celebrities won’t enjoy having their pictures in videos like that one. Tom Cruise is pretty much screwed, he is tied so strongly to the organization that he’ll go down with it (or at least his career). Others probably are not that dumb.
…this suit is “frivolous” and meritorious.
Erm? Perhaps you mean “meretricious”. Or perhaps it was a freudian slip.
Hell, I don’t know what I meant other than “lacks merit,” but I forgot to type “nonmeritorious,” which isn’t even really a true word in the English language. Yet the profs used that word all th time.
Dang.
It’s been a few years since I graduated law school, and I’ve been trying to regain my common sense ever since.