I asked a similar question regarding why the Church was not prosecuted by the government as an entity, and got some good answers from /u/Bank_Gothic and /u/Pau_Zotoh_Zhaan on this thread:

https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/5sqwlk/operation_snow_white_was_one_of_the_largest/?ref=share&ref_source=link

I think this might be a better question for /r/asklegal than /r/askhistorians since it's much more a legal question than a historic question.

That said... The Church of Scientology is not an "officially recognized religion", because in the USA there's no such thing as an "officially recognized religion". The Church of Scientology, like all organizations declaring themselves to be churches, is considered to be a 501(c)(3) tax exempt organization as long as it meets those standards, they aren't even required to apply.

Also, you've got your timeline a bit messed up, the CoS got its tax exempt status before the infiltration and espionage, not after.

Unless you are blatantly violating tax rules and clearly and really obviously using your 501(c)(3) status for nothing but tax evasion it's generally really hard for a religious organization to lose tax exempt status. That's mostly due to the 1st Amendment, the US government is flatly not permitted to discriminate among religions and it is especially not permitted to abolish or prohibit a religion no matter how awful it is.

See, for example, the various Fundamentalist Latter Day Saints groups, which continue to exist despite multiple prosecutions for child abuse, child rape, and so on. The government prosecutes them for the individual crimes but cannot ban the religion.

Likewise see the various televangelist types who have huge mansions, private jets, exotic car collections and so on but are tax exempt. The IRS is extremely reluctant to start threatening the tax exempt status of any group proclaiming itself to be a religion unless the violations are so huge and blatant that there's absolutely no question at all that the group (or individual) is just evading taxes. Despite being very rich and having lots of toys, the televangalists preach. Despite various crimes the CoS does... well, whatever their religious stuff is. Despite their numerous crimes, the FLDS preach. That's enough by the very loose standards the US follows.

But the core point is that in the USA there's no such thing as an "officially recognized religion" so the Church of Scientology isn't one. It's just tax exempt.

Hi, everyone,

This thread is attracting redditors who seem to have a lot more interest in yelling at other redditors than in history.

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Thanks!

I common question but a good one. I teach a class in NRM (new religious movements) at the local university and hear it often. The short answer is, there is no 'officially recognised religion' in the US (even though there are some tax exemptions some religions can use). It is more a European phenomenon but the countries CoS have , to my knowledge, applied in they have been rejected