A fascinating question, and as noted by others, may (and does) vary depending on the country. Lawrence Wright's 'Going Clear' (more so the book than the HBO mo

A fascinating question, and as noted by others, may (and does) vary depending on the country. Lawrence Wright's 'Going Clear' (more so the book than the HBO movie) goes into some detail about the apparent hand-wringing going on with the IRS as it suddenly had to come up with a definition of a religion. Predictably it's a pretty fuzzy set of criteria -- though whether you want religion defined by your revenue collection branch of the government is a whole other question. From http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/01/16/15-scientology-revelations-from-lawrence-wright-s-going-clear.html http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/01/16/15-scientol... : > In 1993, after a prolonged fight, the IRS settled with the church over its tax-exempt status. Miscavige was able to regain the status (after the government’s disastrous handling of the Branch Davidian siege in Waco, Texas) by paying only $12.5 million of the $1 billion (which would have bankrupted the church) in back taxes it owed.