Incorporated in 1982 in California, the CST emerged after the CoS 'great renaming', which saw the Church's original family of corporate and administrative bodies thrown into organizational chaos in the aftermath of the Snow White raids. When the dust settled, David Miscavige had installed himself as president of Religious Technology Center (RTC), the regulatory body that today oversees the activities and finances of all lesser CoS entities, and enforces the proper use of the Tech, the 'heart' of the religious facet of scientology.
As mentioned previously, it is from the CST that RTC derives the bulk of its power. According to LRH's own will, the CST maintains ultimate authority over the RTC, simply due to its power to rescind the licence that gives RTC carte blanche to use, enforce and restrict its copyrighted material.
CST was founded by a mysterious group of individuals, only one of whom, Lyman Spurlock, with a name easily recognized by those familiar with the CoS power structure. The other founders were all non-scientologist lawyers: Sherman Lenske, Leon Mistarek and Meade Emory. Lenske is also the Agent of the CST.
In 1982, Spurlock was the president and CEO of CST, a position he no longer holds; the other officials on the board were Leo Johnson (Secretary) and Nancy O'Meara (Chief Financial Officer). CST also boasted on its original corporate roster three trustees, Terri Gamboa, Greg Wilhere and Marion Meisler. All three were veterans of the 1982 putsch, with roots in other corporate entities, including Author Services Inc., Church of Scientology International, and the ill-fated Church of Scientology of California, victim of an internal structural pruning after being found liable in the infamous Wollersheim case.
In the early 1990s, CST fought a long and ultimately doomed battle with the IRS, which had denied the CoS the coveted tax-exempt status which it later achieved through extraordinary channels. Although the CST's fight was unsuccessful on paper, it did achieve tax exempt status as part of the far-reaching and unprecedented tax agreement reached by the organization itself in the fall of 1993. The court case between the IRS and the CST does, however, provide an excellent overview of the history and then-current corporate structure of the CST as of 1992, although it is not known what, if anything, may have changed in the years since the case concluded. The CST, like all scientology corporations, is also a member of the Church Tax Compliance Committee, formed under the terms of the IRS agreement.