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Comment by Isamu | Hacker News Reader

> In September 2015, the multi-millionaire engineer at the heart of the patent and trade secrets lawsuit between Uber and Waymo, Google’s self-driving car company, founded a religious organization called Way of the Future. Its purpose, according to previously unreported state filings, is nothing less than to “develop and promote the realization of a Godhead based on Artificial Intelligence.”

I'm sure this is strictly on the up-and-up, but in the 70's this was a classic tax dodge that many folks tried. The problem was if you got caught in any inconsistencies where, for some purposes, you seemed to be acting as a regular business while representing yourself as a church to the govt.

> Way of the Future has not yet responded to requests for the forms it must submit annually to the Internal Revenue Service (and make publically available), as a non-profit religious corporation.

Is this true? All churches must make their IRS returns available?

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> I'm sure this is strictly on the up-and-up, but in the 70's this was a classic tax dodge that many folks tried.

And for this reason it's incredibly difficult to get tax-free status after the whole "new religion" movement in the 1970s. The bar the IRS sets is far higher now. Which is why this is very likely not the motivation here... any lawyer would tell you this and I'm sure this guy has plenty of lawyers.

> And for this reason it's incredibly difficult to get tax-free status

Churches still have it pretty easy, they are excepted from having to file for tax exempt status, don't have to file an annual information return. They are not required to obtain 501(c)(3) status.

Legitimate churches, that is. The IRS is free to question your status as a church but is unlikely to if, for instance, you are part of a recognized national church organization, or otherwise function as a regular church.

There pretty much is no such thing as an illegitimate church in the USA. The IRS is too scared to touch that anymore. John Oliver famously made fun of this on a segment. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7y1xJAVZxXg

Well yeah, after operation Snow White I wouldn't want to poke the hornets nest.

Didn't John Oliver manage it without too much trouble?

Setting up a church is easy in a great many respects. Getting tax-exempt status for it and/or your activities is far more involved I would expect.

I believe that was what he did

It seems like this guy has done a few things most lawyers would advise against.

Makes me think of Heinlein's "Stranger in a Strange Land". Although arguably, they really had something going for them.

Anyway, always interesting to hold Heinlein's writing up to contemporary society. Or rather, to have comparisons spontaneously appear in one's thinking as one surveys circumstances.

There's some claims that Heinlein and L. Ron Hubbard had discussions about religion prior to the writing of Stranger in a Strange Land and founding of Scientology.

https://everything2.com/title/The+Heinlein+-+Hubbard+Wager+M...

Bot god = PK Dick's "The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Three_Stigmata_of_Palmer_E...

There are 501(c)(3) "non-profit religious corporations" and 508(c)(1)(a) "non-profit religious churches". Only 501(c)(3) must submit documents to the IRS because they are a "corporation".

As a side note, 508(c)(1)(a) can also speak about politics while 501(c)(3) are forbidden from doing so.

> As a side note, 508(c)(1)(a) can also speak about politics while 501(c)(3) are forbidden from doing so.

Er, that's not exactly true. 501(c)(3) aren't forbidden from speaking about politics. There are restrictions on the ways in which they can (e.g. no overt party affiliation) and the degree to which they can do so. For example, they can spend time lobbying, but only 10% of their time and only 10% of their budget (I don't remember if it's still 10%, but that used to be the number). Oftentimes, 501(c)(3)s will have a separate, associated entity that they use for their political lobbying, to avoid having to keep track of their resources when mixed and prove that it's under this threshold.

501(c)(3)s are not required to be corporations.

508 doesn't provide an alternative kind of tax exempt organization, it identifies rules governing 501(c)(3), and 508(c) identifies exceptions to the rules governing which 501(c)(3) orgs are presumed to be “private foundations” unless they notify the Treasury otherwise. All organizations described by the exception in 508(c)(1)(a) are, by definition, organizations also described in 501(c)(3), and so governed by the rules applicable to such organizations.

https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/26/508

I guess when you are a creepy psychopath you gotta go ALL THE WAY. wow.

This is the history of Scientology.

They have to file papers, not publish tax returns

> Way of the Future

Is this SV religion on twitter that thinks the blockchain is actually a sentient AI attempting to infiltrate the global banking system?

More likely a serious mid /early life breakdown

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