Das Urteil, mit dem die Richter Scientology die Gemeinnützigkeit und in weiterer Folge die damit einhergehende Steuerbefreiung aberkannten, stützte sich vorrangig auf einen Aspekt: Die Preise, die für das „Erklettern“ der scientologischen „Brücke zur Freiheit“ verlangt wurden.
Das Gericht ging nicht darauf ein, inwieweit Scientology eine Kirche bzw. Religion ist, sondern konzentrierte sich nur auf die Tatsache, dass die Mitglieder gezwungen waren, horrende Summen dafür aufzubringen. Diese Summen werden, so die Richter, gewinnorientiert eingenommen. Damit sahen sie die Gemeinnützigkeit nicht gegeben, dafür aber das reine Profitstreben.
Hier der ausführliche Artikel von Jonny Jacobsen, der diesen Aspekt abhandelt: „A Dutch tax court on Wednesday denied Scientology the tax-exempt status of a public benefit organisation, ruling that it was clearly a commercial enterprise.
This decision comes after last December’s Supreme Court ruling overturning an appeal court decision that had gone in Scientology’s favour, as we reported here at the time.
A Scientology spokesman denounced the ruling as religious discrimination, the Dutch newspaper Trouw reported Wednesday. It was not yet clear if the movement would appeal, added reporter Robin de Wever. But the ruling means that Scientologists there will not be able to claim tax breaks for payments to the organisation.
After the tax laws were tightened, the Scientology Kerk Amsterdam (SKA), fought a series of court cases to retain the tax breaks accorded a public benefit organisation, or charity. When this particular court battle started, in 2007, 50 percent of an organisation’s activities needed to have a public benefit.
The Supreme Court ruled last December that even if the Church of Scientology in Amsterdam, was a genuine church, it did not necessarily meet this criterion, and sent the case back to the lower courts for further consideration.
Wednesday’s latest judgment noted that tax officials were not disputing what Scientology said about the religious nature of its auditing and training. What they were arguing was that Scientology served private interests rather than being in the public interest.
It was for Scientology to take up the challenge issued by tax officials, said the court; it had to show that the services it sold for individuals’ spiritual development served the public interest. The court took the view that Scientology had not met that challenge.
Scientology had argued that its work fighting drug addiction and illiteracy across the world, its campaigns for prison reform and the rights of patients, spoke to the public interest aspect of its work.
But the judgment listed some of the prices charged in 2011 for members’ courses: from 90 euros for a Dianetics seminar to 2,950 for one intensive auditing.
For the court, the fact that Scientology offered its auditing and training at ‚substantial and fixed rates‘ was crucial. Tax officials had calculated that the average hourly rate for auditing and training came to 520 euros; 235 euros for the intensives.
That was ‚significantly higher‘ than hourly rates applied by commercial education institutes which – if they had set such rates – would be offering the equivalent of the best education by the best teachers in the best locations, said the court.
Given these commercial rates, it could not just be assumed that the public interest was being served as much as private interests, even if it was for a religious purpose, said the court. The auditing and training offered by Scientology in Amsterdam made up more than 50 percent of its activities, which meant its activities were mainly commercial.
Scientology had been unable to demonstrate ‚that the public interest is at least equally served as private interest‘, the court concluded.
Corresponding with Robin de Wever to check details of the story, he gave me some useful background on this affair. ‚Dutch tax law switched in 2008 from a system in which any organization could sign itself up for these tax breaks (and the Dutch IRS [= Finanzbehörde] would randomly check a number of organizations) to a system where every organization had to file a request to get such a status.‘
He also pointed me to an interesting part of the judgment that I’d missed. In paragraph 8.12 of the ruling, he explained, ‚the judge notes that course and auditing prices are ’not only meant to cover costs.’ The SKA knowingly strives for surpluses, that are to be used for its own conservation and has reached exploitation surpluses, which has lead to a significant wealth.
Plain English: the SKA charges so much that it clearly makes a profit and it has used that profit to amass a ’significant wealth’, de Wever explained.“
Foto: M. Rinder