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This is a business that was set up, according to the son of Scientology founder and science fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard, to avoid taxes. Its counseling process can cost a participant as much as $400,000, and it now claims offices in 78 countries. It reported $74.3-million in revenue last year from its Clearwater facility alone and says it will spend $185-million during the next five years to acquire more properties worldwide. It is a business that, according to records filed ...

WASHINGTON, Oct. 21 — The Church of Scientology, the secretive and combative international organization that recently won a decades-long drive for Federal tax exemption, counts assets of about $400 million and appears to take in nearly $300 million a year from counseling fees, book sales, investments and other sources, according to documents filed with the Internal Revenue Service. The financial disclosures are in documents the church was required to file with the I.R.S. in applying for tax-exempt status, conferred on 30 ...

[This is a shorter reprint of Scientologists profited from new members | St. Petersburg Times (Florida) | 15 October 1993.] WASHINGTON — It pays to pitch Scientology, according to earnings reports the church has filed with the Internal Revenue Service. One man averaged almost $200,000 a year in commissions from the fees of new members he had solicited to become Scientologists. The church gives its proselytizers 10 to 15 percent of what newcomers "donate" for church services, such as the ...

Newly released earnings reports show late founder L. Ron Hubbard's disciples can earn big money by soliciting members to Scientology. WASHINGTON — It pays to pitch Scientology, according to earnings reports the church has filed with the Internal Revenue Service. One man averaged almost $200,000 a year in commissions from the fees of new members he had solicited to become Scientologists. The church gives its proselytizers 10 to 15 percent of what newcomers "donate" for church services, such as the process ...

The Church of Scientology, freed of its income tax obligations by the IRS this month, is spending $114-million to preserve the voluminous writings of deceased founder L. Ron Hubbard, the group says in newly released documents. The works will be etched into steel plates and printed in book form on natural cotton and linen fabric, according to documents. Some will be stocked in an underground vault in California that is designed, Scientologists hope, to protect the writings during a nuclear war. ...

NEW YORK (AP) — Some subjects of unflattering magazine profiles are content to write a letter to the editor or cancel their subscription. The Church of Scientology, pilloried in Time as "The Cult of Greed," is fighting back with a $3 million ad campaign. After several weeks of taking out full-page color ads in USA Today, the church has released a glossy, 28-page booklet that purports to refute Time's charges and expose its motivation for the May 6 cover story. Titled ...

Petrolia — A few miles outside of this coastal community, a massive 400-foot subterranean vault constructed of steel and concrete lies beneath a peaceful knoll overlooking the Pacific. The breadth and dimension of the vault stagger the imagination: 100 feet longer than a football field and 20 feet in diameter, the two-story sarcophagus is almost complete. It is designed to withstand the ravages of nature as well as man-made destruction. Humboldt County is now home to one of the most impregnable ...

On a 3,000-acre ranch in rural Humboldt County, devotees of Church of Scientology-founder L. Ron Hubbard are building a 375-foot-long underground vault. The vault is being built on the Sunset View Ranch in Petrolia, a small town located about 20 miles south of Ferndale, by the Church of Spiritual Technology (COST). COST is linked to the controversial Church of Scientology, whose operations, according to court documents, include a lack of financial records, public policy violations, deceptive practices and the maintenance of ...

The ruling says the law does not apply to donations the Scientologists receive for "auditing and training." Auditing is a Scientology counseling process. [Heber Jentzsch] said almost all donations the Church of Scientology receives are for auditing or training. "That's the whole of Scientology," he said. "That's really what we do." Asked if the organization received donations for any other purposes beside auditing and training, Jentzsch said, "I don't know."

Emerging from years of internal strife and public scandal, the Scientology movement has embarked on a sweeping and sophisticated campaign to gain new influence in America. The goal is to refurbish the tarnished image of Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard and elevate him to the ranks of history's great humanitarians and thinkers. By so doing, the church hopes to broaden the acceptability of Hubbard's Scientology teachings and attract millions of new members. The campaign relies on official church programs and a ...

Scientology is determined that the words of L. Ron Hubbard shall live forever. Using state-of-the art technology, the movement has spent more than $15 million to protect Hubbard's original writings, tape-recorded lectures and filmed treatises from natural and man-made calamities, including nuclear holocaust. The effort illustrates two fundamental truths about the Scientology movement: It believes in its future and it never does anything halfheartedly. In charge of the preservation task is the Church of Spiritual Technology, which functions as archivist for ...

Abolish income tax; we'd all benefit By David Miscavige Guest columnist LOS ANGELES — When the 16th Amendment passed, permitting an income tax, voters were promised this new tax would be fairly administered. They were assured it would represent no threat to our liberties. And they were promised it would be temporary. They were also warned. On the floor of the House, Samuel Walker McCall of Massachusetts said the income tax is not "primarily to raise money for the state but ...

The Church of Scientology's genesis was the 1950 best seller by L. Ron Hubbard, "Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health." Church officials claim there are 7 million Scientologists worldwide, but former members allege there may be fewer than 100,000. The church promotes Scientology as a religion — one not based on the worship of a god but on the belief in "scientific" principles applied to the mind. Hubbard argued in "Dianetics" that inner turmoil springs from subconscious mental images, or ...

The IRS, which earlier took on the Scientologists in Washington and Los Angeles, now has brought its court battle to federal court in Tampa. Its target is Scientology's worldwide spiritual headquarters in Clearwater. Scientologists vehemently disagree, calling the IRS corrupt and accusing it of pursuing a vendetta against Scientology. ``We feel the federal government should investigate illegal drug running in Florida and should investigate money laundering in Florida banks,`` said spokesman Humberto Fontana. Scientologists also are in court with Pinellas County ...

NEWKIRK, Okla., July 16—When a California group received Oklahoma's permission to open a 75-bed drug and alcohol treatment center on an Indian reservation, people in nearby Newkirk thought the project would ease local economic troubles brought on by slumps in the oil and farming businesses. The initial euphoria has been replaced by distrust, frustration and fear. Townspeople say the California group, Narconon International, has not been honest about its affiliation with the Church of Scientology, its financing, its medical credentials and ...

[This is a reprint of an article published on December 23, 1988 in the St. Petersburg Times.]

After years of sparring with the townsfolk and veiling itself in secrecy, the Church of Scientology has succeeded in turning Clearwater into its spiritual mecca. Scientologists quietly run teen nightclubs, schools, day-care centers, management consulting firms and other businesses, records and interviews show. Now the strategy of the organization, longtime observers say, is to confront controversy, gain converts and make money - lots of it. Scientology's Clearwater operation brings in $1.5-million to $2-million a week, say church watchers who include Clearwater ...

TWO West Country doctors have been channeling patients to the controversial Church of Scientology cult. A Sunday Times Investigation has revealed that Dr Edward Hamlyn and his wife, Dr Dorothy West, who run a surgery in Ivybridge, Devon, are members of the Church of Scientology and both act as local recruiting agents for the cult. They refer patients to Plymouth Scientology centre for a commission. Scientology is the money-spinning brainchild of the late Lafayette Ronald Hubbard, an unsuccessful postwar science fiction ...

MONEY PROBLEMS AS NOTED IN THE MAIN ARTICLE, the one subject church leaders would not discuss in detail is money — notably, how much the church takes in and where it specifically goes. With 40,000 members in L.A alone, some of them spending tens of thousands on auditing, the sums can clearly be large. A 1974 internal memo indicated the church grossed $24 million that year; former Scientologists have put the current gross at $100 million, a figure that cannot be ...

Why a Portland jury awarded $39 million in damages against one of the world's most profitable cults. ONE SUNNY AFTERNOON last week, an elderly man, who looked as though he had probably spent the past few nights sleeping under the stars, stood in the southeast corner of Lownsdale Square in downtown Portland gazing in bewilderment at the scene before him. Several hundred people, many wearing T-shirts proclaiming something about a crusade for religious freedom, gathered around a large stage in the ...

After winning a $39 million judgment against the Church of Scientology late Friday afternoon, Julie Christofferson Titchbourne said she hoped to establish a foundation to help other victims of thought-control organizations. Titchbourne, a soft-spoken civil engineer who hugged her mother, husband and lawyers after hearing the jury's decision, said she hoped her experience could be turned to an advantage for others whose lives need rebuilding. During a brief appearance before reporters outside the courtroom door, neither Titchbourne nor one of her ...