Tag Archives: Fred Goldberg

Going Clear, Part 13 summary:

Rathbun details the two years of ‘living hell’ the IRS put the Church of Scientology through before deciding there was no remaining grounds by which they could deny it tax exemption.  The IRS thoroughly examined every entity even marginally related to the church, including examining ten years of Founder L. Ron Hubbard’s taxes long after his death, including settlement of his estate.  It was only after the IRS exhausted every lead through all of the books and activities of every entity that they concluded, “Ok, they’re all exempt.”  It wasn’t that the church asked for or demanded every entity receive exemption; it was that the IRS insisted upon examining them.  Wright was informed of all this. Not only did he not report it, he wondered aloud in his book how it was that the IRS ‘caved’ to the church’s alleged demand for across the board exemptions.  Per Rathbun, Wright “never let the facts get in the way of his narrative.”  Wright asserts it was odd the IRS granted exemption when the “courts had repeatedly ruled in its favor” against Scientology. In fact, Rathbun shared dozens of more then-recent decisions the church had been racking up against the IRS, decisions that put the IRS in an legally untenable position should it not afford Scientology a full consideration for exemption for the many years which had yet to be adjudicated.  Rathbun details some of those decisions. None of it was mentioned in Wright’s book to maintain the fiction there was something untoward about the IRS’s 1993 tax exemption recognition of Scientology churches.  Clearly, Wright was setting up an “authoritative” book to use for the purpose of attempting to have Scientology’s tax exemption removed. That later proved to be the case when Wright, his film Director Alex Gibney, and paid witness Mike Rinder strenuously campaigned to have exactly that done – on the basis of the book Going Clear and its movie adaptation.  “I went through all of this with Wright, all of it, for many hours, including many follow up phone calls.”  None of it made it in the book.