As mentioned in another thread, the Watchtower Bible & Tract Society of Australia is refusing to give me my personal records, though I believe they are supposed to under the Aust Privacy Act. They claim to not be under the legislation, which exempts businesses with less than 3 million turnover.
Anyway, I purchased their Financial Report that is lodged with ASIC to find out what the turnover is ($16million). As i had to pay for it it is probably illegal under copyright to post the entire 22 pages, so I will list some of the figures that i found interesting.
None of the Directors have shares or received any benefits.
"The company was party to any (court) proceedings during the year" That is because I can't afford to start proceedings
The Auditor is a JW Is that a contravention of independance requirements?
REVENUE $16,434,005. Interest accounted for $348,970 Donations account for $15,523,039, and are up $2.2 million from 2004 That is probably all the deceased estates as all the oldies die off
EXPENSES
Evangalizing $1.6 million, Teaching $2.4 million, bethel serices $1.9 million, admin services $8.4 million (a note explains that this is sent to overseas branches), plus a couple of other things amounting to a total of $15,718,104
SURPLUS $715,901
NET ASSETS $14,401,454
TOTAL ASSETS $30,545,850
With all that money guess how much went to charity work?
"Shepherding (hospital information, legal support, humanitarian relief work)" $1,391
Cash and short term investments (money market instruments - maturing within 90 days $5,922,333
With $6 million sitting in the bank there should be a talk that no more donations are necessary for the next couple of years.
It appears the Aust branch received charity status in 2001, so now is tax exempt as a charitable entity.
Another thing i did not know is that they have are a licensed as a travel agency trading as Watchtower Travel, and sold (to themselves ) $580,000 dollars worth of tickets. So that is the cost of having Bethelites speaking at conventions each year in Australia.