Indiana Offers Tax Breaks To Attract Religious Doomsday Cults

INDIANAPOLIS—With an official proclamation that declared the state “open to self-proclaimed messianic prophets,” Indiana began offering tax breaks Wednesday to attract religious doomsday cults. “Whether your fundamentalist commune believes it will usher in an apocalyptic race war or board a spaceship to a higher plane of existence, we hope your cult will choose to make Indiana its new home,” Gov. Mike Braun said during a signing ceremony for the new law, which will provide a 30% tax credit for all qualified expenditures, including stockpiled firearms, ceremonial cloaks, surveillance equipment, proselytizing pamphlets, and bulk purchases of matching Nikes. “This legislation will make us the next hotspot for fanatical cults of personality, bringing new opportunities to the neglected rural parts of our state, especially those that are isolated and free from any outside influences or scrutiny. You can move here and do whatever your beliefs command you to do: Drown your followers in Lake Michigan as part of a spiritual cleansing ritual, bury the bodies in the Indiana Dunes National Park—that part’s up to you,” Braun added. “It doesn’t matter if your cult is the kind where no one is allowed to have sex or the kind where everyone is allowed to have sex, but only with the group’s leader. Either way, you’ve got friends here in the Hoosier State.” Braun went on to observe that an end-times collective could get “a whole lot more bunker” for its money in Indiana than it could in California or Texas.