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IRS and Scientology
CHURCH STAFF AND MINISTERS USED TO ENFORCE IRS COMPLIANCE
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Public Research Foundation
PUBLIC RESEARCH FOUNDATION
HCR 38, BOX 66
LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89124
PHONE: 702-873-2343
FAX: 702-873-2115
E-MAIL: prf@mailcity.com
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
November(?) 1997
CHURCH STAFF AND MINISTERS USED TO ENFORCE IRS COMPLIANCE
An official Scientology document--recently uncovered by the
Public Research Foundation--requires ministers and staff of every
Scientology church and mission to enforce compliance to IRS
regulations on individual parishoners.
The document, a "Scientology Policy Directive" entitled
"PERSONAL INCOME TAXES," is written by an unidentified "Tax
Compliance Officer" for the Church of Scientology. In part, it
says that a Scientologist who fails to comply with all IRS
regulations "will be ineligible for Church services until the
matter is rectified."
To put teeth into the enforcement, the church Tax Directive
goes so far as to threaten non-compliers with the loss of their
religion. Ordering parishoners to abide by IRS edicts, the church
Tax Directive concludes: "Who would want to risk his eternity for
any amount of money?"
A highly-placed church official named Lyman Spurlock
confirmed that threat when he wrote to one parishoner who had
challenged the constitutionality of the unholy church/state
union:
"Were I you I would weigh...the IRS versus your future for
eternity. If you insist on your current course you will not
ever be eligible for training and processing (Scientology
church services) and that is very unfortunate for you."
And unfortunate it was: the parishoner that letter was
addressed to was later expelled from the church when he wouldn't
knuckle under.
Lyman Spurlock, the author of the letter, is co-founder of
Scientology's most powerful organization, a secretive corporation
called the "Church of Spiritual Technology" (CST). But it was
recently disclosed by the Public Research Foundation (Press
Release: "HIDDEN TIES BETWEEN IRS AND SCIENTOLOGY REVEALED") that
Spurlock's fellow co-founder of CST is former Assistant to the
Commissioner of IRS, Meade Emory. Serious questions are being
raised by many about what influence Emory might have had in the
super-secret 1993 IRS tax exemption for CST and the lesser
Scientology corporations. Aside from Spurlock--who is a
CPA--Emory and the other co-founders and Special Directors of CST
are not, themselves, Scientologists, but are tax and probate
attorneys.
Meade Emory was Assistant to IRS Commissioner Donald C.
Alexander, whose reign began during Nixon's catastrophic last
term. Before that, Emory was Legislation Counsel of the Joint
Committee on Taxation of the U.S. Congress.
CST--the all-powerful Scientology corporation that Emory
helped to set up--operates almost invisibly behind the panoply of
church corporations it controls, but exercises final authority
over every copyright and trademark that has any connection with
Scientology. Without CST's blessing, none of the junior
corporations could operate at all.
It is CST's corporate leverage over all of Scientology and
over all Scientologists that makes the unprecedented church Tax
Directives possible.
Another Scientologist who was expelled on the strength of
those church Tax Directives said, "This is the greatest outrage
against religious freedoms since the American Revolution. If a
church can use a parishoner's hope of salvation to make him kneel
down before a vicious government agency, then the IRS can use ANY
church to hound and threaten. Who's next for a 'Tax Compliance
Officer?' The Baptists? The Catholics? Church and state are one
now. My church IS the IRS."
Said one tax-watcher, "This makes all Scientology
organizations 'branch offices' of IRS, and every Scientology
minister an agent of IRS--there to enforce compliance under the
threat of eternal damnation. Why else would a church have a Tax
Compliance Enforcement Officer? And what happens if a Scientology
penitent needs to confess to his minister that he fudged
somewhere on his taxes?"
Others are asking why no one in any branch of government has
done anything to force open the sealed, secret tax-exemption
agreement between IRS and Scientology. On March 15, 1996, U.S.
District Judge Gladys Kessler, in the case of TAX ANALYSTS v.
INTERNAL REVENUE SERVICE in the United States District Court for
the District of Columbia (case No. 94-CV-00220 [TFH]), did order
the IRS to release certain documents regarding the Scientology
"closing agreement," but so far IRS has not even complied with
the court order.
In that case, Tax Analysts exposed several disturbing facts
about the IRS/Scientology arrangement. Submissions to the court
revealed, among other things, that the IRS's Exempt Organizations
Technical Division had been "instructed not to review the
exemption applications filed by the Church of Scientology and its
affiliates for compliance with IRC 501(c)(3)."
Who issued that strange order, and whether Meade Emory had
any influence on that decision, is unknown. It is likely to
remain unknown until sufficient public pressure is brought to
bear on federal officials that the IRS/Scientology agreement is
unsealed.
Until then, for the first time in American history,
adherents of a religion are being forced by their church to know
and abide by the 6,000-page scripture of IRS, or be denied the
right to the free exercise of their chosen religion.
-END OF RELEASE-
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