Dutch tax exemption revoked + bonus announcements

Last week the Dutch tax exemption for Scientology has been revoked.

A little background. Between 1996 and 2004 Scientology litigated to obtain tax exemption in the Netherlands. They did not succeed, because they failed to pass the public benefit test. Their next move was to create a fake foundation, Nabesa, for which they were able to obtain tax exeption. Last Febuary I obtained evidence that the CoS was abusing the tax exemption to solicit donations for the Dutch Ideal Org. This lead to some modest press attention and parliamentary questions, which were answered in a very bland way a few months later (but that´s how the game is played). The relevant thread is here: https://whyweprotest.net/community/threads/dutch-cos-buys-building.100748/.

Luckily the tax office did take action after all and they removed the tax exemption last week!

The ANBI register for tax exempt organisations still included Nabesa on July 3rd (Google cache so page will eventually disappear): http://webcache.googleusercontent.c...besa&p=&Submit=Zoek &cd=4&hl=nl&ct=clnk&gl=nl. However, as of last week the search result comes up empty: http://213.197.219.132/anbi_zoeken_lwcm/search.php?q=nabesa&p=&Submit=Zoek.

Also, the Nabesa website changed from http://scamofscientology.nl/img/nabesa.jpg to http://nabesa.nl/, providing further evidence that their tax free status has been yanked.

So yay for government officials doing their job!

I also promised bonus announcements and actually I got two:

Firstly, the Dutch CoS primary school closed down: http://www.lafayette-school.nl/nieuws.html. This is actually last month's news, but it hadn't been posted here yet. They are attempting to reopen a school in Amsterdam (http://debrugkrant.nl/nieuwe-kleinschalige-school-voor-de-toekomst-op-ijburg/), but it is unclear how succesfull this attempt is.

Secondly, as David Love already hinted in another thread, the Healthcare inspection opened an investigation into Narconon. The confirmation is here: http://scamofscientology.nl/img/NarcononIgZ.jpg. I have asked David to act as contact person (since I prefer not to get namefagged) and he is working on sending some more dox to the good people at the Health Inspection.

sweet news

I <3 Dutch anons

WHOA!!

One down...

BigBeard

Thanks. Can we get a translation, or at least a tl;dr for those of us who don't speak or read pot smoker, er, Dutch?

OP

T'L;DR: notifying your local health inspection about Narconon works and it helps people.

hahahahahhahahaaahahahahaha!

briljant!

W.I.N.N.E.R.!

Mooi werk.

This has ramifications for the cult in a whole bloody country! This is a major win!

OP. I absolutely agree, it's a major setback for the cult here, in particular for their Idle Org. It will increase the pressure towards their most loyal members to donate, which will backfire in the long run. And more importantly, they cannot hide this from the wider flock. They HAVE to communicate this, so it is guaranteed to create quite a bit of cognitive dissonance with the sheeple.

UITSTEKEND!

suck on that Miscarriage!!!!

inb4everyhtingforsale

"failed to pass the public benefit test"
Dear Dutch, please share your info with the rest of the world who has been hoodwinked into thinking they are a charitable organization!

For clarity: anbi-status [tax exemption] still exists for Narconon and De weg naar het geluk = The way to happiness.

No changes there. See for yourself: go to http://www.belastingdienst.nl/rekenhulpen/giften/anbi_zoeken/
and type Narconon in the "Instelling" field, then hit "Zoek" [search] . Same for "Weg naar het geluk".

OP definitely has reached a nice win though.

Well, let's hope David Love can do something about some of it, then!

Love does go around.

OP here. You are right, but this was by far the biggest fish. You see, Nabesa was used to funnel Ideal Org donations, and probably IAS donations as well, to the tune of 1,5 million a year. The tax office has been made aware that all the other foundations are used for minor promotional activities with very insignificant funds (eg weg naar Geluk) or for funding Narconon, is supposed to be profitable in itself.

The tax office has to abide by laws. And as such they have option but to grant something like the Way to Happiness tax deduction. I consider it part of living in a democracy, so it Is really a positive thing.

The Health authorities have been made aware of Narconon's ANBI status and may, repeat may, be able to provide the Tax Office with sufficient reason to revoke tax exemption.

Delicious news. TY!!!!

I freaking love every one of the Netherlands Anons. I would gladly hump your legs or let you hump my legs, your choice. You inspire the rest of us to keep kicking ass and breaking the cult.

The next question is whether the Scientology corporation committed fraud when it used a fake company to funnel tax-free money into its bank account. I hope the government will investigate and bring charges.

Yeah, but it's a small one with huge amounts of weed. On second thought, this is HUGE. They're not a rogue state like the US.

50,000 Quatloos on the human!!

Good observation. When I notified the tax office, I only notified the ANBI team and not the fraud team (FIOD), as I had no proof of wrongdoing. I did notify the ANBI team that the people in charge of Nabesa were long-standing Scientologists who must have known personally about the attempts to gain tax exemption and that it would be their mindset to commit fraud. As such I urged them to look into their files from the 96-04 period to at least investigate whether these people were actively involved in the 96 to 04 litigation. But even if they have done this, I suspect it will not be enough grounds to initiate an investigation, unless Scientology made one of its usual footbullets by being overly agressive towards the tax office. Any communication from their side which would show a sense of entitlement, could backfire badly.

Also relevant is whether the removal of the tax free status will be retrospective or not. The official on the tax office website states that when an ANBI status is removed, this is never retrospective. However, the answer to the parliamentary questions indicated that in case of suspected fraud the status could be removed retrospectively. I really hope this is the case, because this would be a really major blow.

If this is not the case, it becomes important what tax office did before the deadline for submitting deductions for the 2011 tax year on April 1st. They received my information in February so had almost two months to at least prevent tax deductions over 2011. Notifying Scientology of an investigation would probably be sufficient for this.

Also (Derail) is there someone with Search Engine Optimation skills who would be willing to help me? My site has lost 3 places in Google (from 5 to 8) in the last month and I don´t understand why this is the case.

Have you tried the wayback machine: http://archive.org/web/web.php ?

Either way, it sounds like a major blow. The question is how long it will take them to feel it. Good work.

OP gets all my remaining internets.

Wow - Fantastic News!

Are Dutch Anons going to party hard this Saturday in celebration and as part of the Global Party against Scientology?

This thread kind of stopped:
https://whyweprotest.net/community/threads/amsterdam-21-july-2012.103724/

Goed gedaan.

A thing of beauty... great job, Dutch Anons!

Excellent!

Scilons in the news a lot right now. Keep the momentum going and more of them will crumble.

Nice. Nice. Nice.

BUMP!

Lack of attendees, serious lack of attendees..

So. Much. Win.

Wow - lovely work to everyone involved!!

How many Dutch scientologists are there? I saw once that they had a pretty big Free Zone movement [which is sort of different than today's indies].
I mean just one Org for the entire country of 16 million? Doesn't look like Scientology is doing well in Holland.

Depends.
You focus that on a scientologists rate or a money rate..?

Edit:

Should look at about 200-300 scilons. Maybe more, maybe less.

200-300 is very little in numbers. But what about the money? Is a lot of money goes through Holland, because its liberal tax policies? The Org they have is beautiful, I saw online. Seems like it's on a canal?