Konceptual99
The WT tells its followers that its special and that the world (under satans power) is trying to destroy it. This is not true and simply childish. The Church of Scientology was under the same laws, only they paid their taxes !
The French do not have tax exemptions on cults. Their is a long list of cults in France of which the JWs are one. The JW's are listed as cults in many european countries. In France they changed part of their tax law which then included people such as the JW's and the other cults. France bravely decided to go after cults, it wrote a report and set out guidelines on how to define a cult, there are over a hundred that this report included and therefore were affected by the tax laws on donations, including scientology!
http://cftf.com/french/Les_Sectes_en_France/cults.html
Here is the report, it was written and brought into law in 1995. So LEGALLY the JWs were not classed as religion in France from 1995, and therefore not tax exept on donations, they should have paid taxes on donations from 1995 onward!!
Due to this classification of cult, the donations received in France are not classed as "gained religiously" and therefore not tax exempt.
"French authorities say the donations were not raised from a religious source and so were subject to the same rules as other donations."
http://www.expatica.com/fr/news/french-news/europe-court-to-hear-jehovah-witness-tax-case-against-france_99836.html
The French still class JWs as a cult, the new law still stands, however the issue of retrospective payments was argued because WT claimed it would inhibit the worship of its French followers if it was forced to pay it ! (as a side note they first claimed the money was for Rwanda as humanitarian aid, now they say it is needed to keep the French arm of the cult alive)
"The Strasbourg-based court, however, rejected a Jehovah's Witness demand for €250,000 in damages -- one euro for each of the sect's followers in France -- as well as another request for France to scrap altogether its efforts to collect taxes from the group."
http://www.thelocal.fr/page/view/3704
The issue has never been the legality of the tax, it is the consequence of the WT coughing up the coins that won them the case, a technicality by my book. Feel free to disagree.
"On June 30, 2011, the European Court of Human Rights unanimously ruled that France's imposing a retroactive tax....had violated Jehovah's Witnesses' right to freedom of religion under Article 9 of the European Convention on Human Rights."
The WT lawyers are not arguing that they are a cult or not a cult. They are saying that paying the bill will lead to an impingment in freedom to worship for the JW's in France. It is no victory, they are still a cult, they still have to pay all future taxes as a cult, they just dont have to pay their tax bill.
They will have to start paying the very same tax bill the moment they return to normal service in France, they are still classified as a cult, they are still not tax exempt on donations. Thanks to the UN, Europe and Satan's system they have avoided criminal prosecution and a large bill.
Prayer apparantly didnt work for the Governing Body , so they went elsewhere.......
"Swingle also wrote an open letter to Jacques Chirac, the President of France. He said, in part: "The ability to practice religion freely is a basic human right, supported by the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the European Convention on Human Rights...
PAY BACK CAESARS THINGS TO CAESAR !!!!
Snare & RACKET
