Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief Page #9

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And they we were publishing

these glossy,

Expensive magazines.

In fact, the exposs

of irs crimes

Were so hated

that possession

of "freedom" magazine

Was banned by irs officials

in the irs building.

There is going to be

a irs conference

in the catskills.

Right?

And so we would send a pi,

Find out which hotel

it's gonna be at,

Get down there

during happy hour,

socialize.

And this guy's tallying

who's drinkin' what.

And so we go through

freedom of information act

To find out

that the taxpayers

are paying the bar bill,

And it's so much money.

And of course, you know,

In the scheme of things,

it's nothing.

But from a pr perspective,

it's everything.

Irs officials told me

to my face

They weren't interested

in hearing anything

I had to say

because, and i quote,

"you are a scientologist.

"you are a mindless robot."

Well, those who know me

can imagine my response.

It was short,

but certainly made the point.

A negotiation

began to take place

Between the irs

and the church

of scientology.

How do you define

a religion?

It's not so easy.

Why is one body

of thinking a religion

And another body not?

The only organization

entitled to make

those distinctions

Is the irs as an agency--

Very poorly equipped

to do that.

I mean, they're mainly

accountants and lawyers,

They're not theologians.

But it's the only opinion

that matters.

Once the irs has decided

that you are a religion,

Then you are protected

by the vast protections

Of the first amendment.

And, as the saying goes,

The rest is history.

On october the first, 1993,

At 8:
37 pm

eastern standard time,

The irs issued letters

recognizing scientology

And every one

of its organizations

As fully tax-exempt!

The war is over!

The war ended

Because the irs surrendered.

It forgave

the billion-dollar tax bill

And granted scientology

its tax exemption.

Even hubbard's novels

were declared religious texts,

Their sales

exempt from taxes.

What happened

is that fred goldberg,

Who was the irs commissioner

at that time--

Miscavige let goldberg know

that if we could find a way

To get tax-exempt status,

All those lawsuits

will go away overnight.

And as we were going

out the door,

Fred goldberg goes,

"is he serious?"

And i said, "yeah."

And he sort of breathed

this sigh of relief,

Kind of nodded,

and smiled.

At the church's

victory party,

Miscavige projected photos

of the church's executives

Celebrating

with irs officials.

It created

this tremendous juggernaut

Of tight conspiracy

of the membership

that then existed,

But what it really did

was enable miscavige

To milk every last dime

Out of that core membership.

I am proud to announce

the discrimination is over.

Your tax dona--

Deductions on donations

to scientology

Will no longer be disallowed

by the internal revenue service.

In the '80s,

while hubbard was in hiding,

Scientology was going through

some very severe litigation,

In particular,

a lawsuit in oregon,

And one in los angeles.

One of them did produce

a $30 million judgment.

This scared scientology.

They realized

they were vulnerable.

And so they

asked scientologists,

"okay, give us

a few thousand dollars.

"you'll get a nice ribbon

or something.

"you're not gonna get

any courses from it."

and this was new,

The idea that you would

give them money

Just to defend

against lawsuits.

And that grew and grew.

Now scientologists

are constantly

Under intense pressure

just to hand money over.

They pitch themselves

as being the underdog,

As being the victim.

And you identify with that.

But then they start

hitting you up

For bigger donations,

and bigger-- and i got

a lot of pressure.

And i think

i donated another $250,000

to them under pressure.

They really know

how to do it.

They really know how to do it,

and he just was after me

and after me.

And they said,

"we're under attack, paul."

This one guy who donated

$25 million,

For no-- you know,

just straight donation,

To this--

to the scientology war chest.

Churches are tax-exempt

Because they're supposed

to provide a public good.

To prove that good

to the irs,

Churches aren't supposed

to hoard their money.

They're supposed to spend it

on services for the faithful.

Under this pretense,

the church had made

massive investments

In tax-free real estate

all over the world.

And when it comes

to labor costs,

They are almost free.

The max i got paid,

you know,

On a weekly basis

was 50 bucks,

Um, for 28 years.

Sea org workers

take home something

Between six and 40 cents

an hour.

So if you've got

very low labor costs,

No taxes to pay,

and wealthy people

giving you donations,

You can see why

scientology has amassed

huge piles of money.

How much are they worth?

This was a bit of a mystery,

but just recently,

I obtained tax records

that scientology

Does have to turn in.

Three of the main entities

of scientology--

And there are 20

or 30 of them--

But the top three,

just on their own,

Have a book value

of $1.5 billion.

It's stunning how much money

a nonprofit

Has been able to amass.

It is a crime

that we've given them

religious recognition

And that

they can hide behind it.

Meanwhile, you got

very good people in there,

And their lives

are being destroyed.

When i started

this story,

I stumbled across

an fbi investigation

of the church.

They were investigating

human trafficking.

It seemed that people

were being confined

against their will.

There were lots

of reports of people

being physically abused,

And the exploitation

of labor and child labor.

All of these things

were questions that

the fbi had.

While that investigation

was going on,

A case was being heard

in colorado--

The headleys,

who were suing the church

For many

of these same violations.

And the court

ruled in that case

That these are all

essentially practices

That are protected

by the religious clause

Of the first amendment.

Once that ruling came out,

The fbi dropped

its investigation.

I think it was an indication

that the church is protected.

Before ending cycle

completely on the irs,

There is one thing

i do wish to do.

Sir. Done.

The "we stand tall" thing--

This again was part

of this whole irs thing.

And miscavige kind of

had this song composed

By the musician group

they had up at the studio.

He was trying

to turn this into--

This was a result of the power

of this movement...

...Which was such bullshit,

Because it was

all about control.

When he got absolute control,

he went absolutely bonkers.

You know, most religions

are tax-exempt

And many have beliefs

and practices

That in the modern context

would be considered strange.

Is scientology any different?

I mean,

if you go to a christian

Or a jew or a muslim,

and ask them,

"what do you believe?",

They can basically describe

The most important parts

of their religion

In a minute or two.

Well, what does

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