Did you give lots of money to the Watchtower? (page 3)

xjwms

About $600 to $800 per year.

it was rare for me to write a check for less than a 50.00 or more at the assemblies

kls

About $600 to $800 per year.
it was rare for me to write a check for less than a 50.00 or more at the assemblies

Say Xjwms, did i ever tell ya about the new Religion i am starting

willyloman

BTW, we always paid by check, partly for tax purposes, and partly so the MS/elders knew who was giving money

Blondie: For a couple of years, I handled the accounts and it was fascinating to see where the checks came from. There was an extremely wealthy family and every month they put a check in the box for $300. They were very money savvy and I knew they were taking a w/o. On the other hand, a couple of other families had similar assets and I rarely saw a check from one of them. Of course, they may have been donating cash. The larger, more consistent checks often came from the people who didn't appear to have that much to give. There was lots of cash, as opposed to checks -- and I always thought this was weird. I mean, this is a tax write off, might as well take it. It was clear from the way the money was inserted into the slot -- two, three $20 bills folded together -- that some people were donating several hundred dollars a year and writing a check would have provided them with a significant tax refund.

Many JWs are weird about this, like everything else. When I got into a discussion one time with fellow dubs in field service, the subject of income tax came up (must have been around mid-April). One of the sisters said they had "a brother" who did their taxes and he was really good at finding legal deductions. She ticked off a list, including: mileage driven in field service and to conventions; the hotel and meal expenses at the conventions (since they "worked" there as volunteers); the cash donations at the KH for magazines, and of course the checks they wrote each month to support the "world wide work," and so on.

Two sisters in the group got pissy and felt it was almost sacreligious to keep track of this stuff and report it on a tax return. One of the brothers in the group remarked that this violated the "don't left your left hand know what your right hand is doing" scripture in the Bible, related to gift giving.

I was one of those people who kept track of everything and wrote it off at the end of the year, thinking why should I give the gov't more money than the gov't itself demanded? When I pointed that out, I changed not one mind!

serendipity

I'd give $10 or $20 at conventions. I seldom ever contributed for anything else except literature. I was bothered by the high expenses - considering that we shared the KH with 2 or 3 other congs, I didn't see why our expenses would be $2K a month.

I notice now that in our cong they have posted on the board a statement which shows some breakout of the expenses, i.e CO expenses, etc.

Frannie Banannie

I look back now and realize that I must have had a lot of subconscious doubts about the WTS doctrines and practices. I only gave twice.......and very little each time. Didn't have enough faith in their religion, I guess. Turned out I was right.

IronClaw

$20 a month, but I seem to recall that I was an irregular contributor.

upside/down

Yup...while serving where the great are needed for 12 years I'd say me and two other "worker bee" brothers literally carried the Cong. financially...it was mostly dead beats, tight wad farmers and white trash (in West Central Iowa)

I always wonder how they made it after I left.... oh I know...Jehooober provided!

ugh,

u/d

nsrn

My dad (or sometimes my mom, when there weren't enough 'brothers' in the congregation) handled the accounts for years--lots of times I remember them giving extra to make the accounts report finish "black". I know every month the expeditures were itemized--phone, gas, electric, etc. And building loan and literature to the society...but I can't remember if other money was sent to headquarters. Do any old account servants out there know?

freedom96

Never donated much at all.

Did you give lots of money to the Watchtower?