Along the Hudson River in NY many religious orders have retreat properties; even with the general decline of the area they are very valuable - and untaxed. As the orders attrite into oblivion, at some point they’ll have to sell the properties or face taxes on them (if they serve no religious purpose). Hard to wave the basket in peoples’ faces when you sit on valuable unused parcels like that.
It’s the same story with Scientology only a little worse. They blackmailed and threatened IRS execs until they gained a tax exemption for being a “church,” so in their case the grift is even more galling.
They (Scientology) own a huge amount of property. If they started having to pay taxes on it, things would change radically for them. (Not that I’m a big fan of taxes. Everyone should get a break. But CLEARLY the churches are taking unfair advantage of the exemption.)
They also engage in human trafficking: Sheltering illegal aliens, sex trafficking, drugs, etc.
I guess people are getting wise to their “Narconon” scam: Families are suing, even though it’s quite difficult to get a favorable judgment after being scammed by them, and some of their people in California are under indictment for fraud. Underground Bunker reported that they did some checking on some of the Narconon facilities and a lot of them are now sitting empty - properties listed as costing up $40 million.
Since a lot of these “churches” don’t bother to stay the h3ll out of politics, perhaps none of them should have a tax exemption any more.