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BATTLEFIELD: EARTH TAX COURT

December 21, 2005

The 1993 IRS settlement with the Church of Scientology came into play in the Tax Court today. Michael Sklar, a Los Angeles CPA, attempted to deduct a portion of tuition paid to send his children to a Jewish day school. He reasoned that if the Scientologists can deduct their "auditing" and "training" fees as charitable contributions, it's only fair to let him similarly deduct the cost of a religious education for his children.

Fair or not, the Tax Court didn't agree. The Tax Court sidestepped the equal protection issue, falling back on established court rulings that religious eduction is not deductible as a charitable deduction.

Presumably Mr. Sklar won't continue the fight by other means -- differing in that respect from the Scientologists. One website devoted to the Scientologist battle with the IRS summarizes that fight:

On 1 October 1993, the Church of Scientology obtained tax exemption from the United States Internal Revenue Service (IRS). This ended 26 years of what the Church itself has described as a "war" against the IRS, in which it used extraordinary and in many cases illegal tactics - bugging of government offices, theft of mountains of classified files, private detectives pursuing senior government officials, thousands of lawsuits, full-page attack adverts in US daily newspapers, and so on.

The Moral? Moses had only 10 plagues; the Scientologists probably have dozens of attorneys.

Cite: Michael and Marla Sklar, 125 T.C. No. 4.

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