As it turned out, the Church had to perform certain actions in order to be given tax exemption. One of these required actions was the shutting down of WISE, Inc. WISE(World Institute of Scientology Enterprises) is a collection of businesses which use Scientology management practices to run their business, and pay the Church of Scientology a percentage of their income for the privilege. Examples of such WISE companies are Digital Lightwave and Executive Software.

Naturally, a number of people noticed that WISE was still going strong several years after WISE, Inc was supposed to be shut down. A little investigation showed that the literal terms of the Agreement did appear to have been followed - WISE, Inc had indeed been shut down.

However, a new organization had been created called WISE International, and this organization was now running WISE instead of WISE, Inc. Case closed?

Apparently not. The state of California has made available a (painfully limited) searchable archive of corporations registered in California at http://204.147.113.12/list.html. A search for World Institute of Scientology Enterprises shows the _original_ World Institute of Scientology Enterprises (incorporated in 1983) still alive and well. So why hasn't it been shut down?

Zed

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