Who are the WT Society Shareholders?

Junction-Guy

Im putting this in its own thread, and I might have done this before but forgotten, but who are the 300+ shareholders of the WT Society? Does anyone have a list of names?

Justahuman24

No but I'd like to know too.

And who owns the WTS?

justahuman - but super nonetheless

Well I guess in theory the shareholders own the WT Society. Im wondering if they receive some type of kickback for their shares? I realize that they are probably forbidden by law to receive actual monetary compensation for their shares, but could they possibly benefit indirectly? For instance, the WT Society uses Buicks as automobiles for their staff and circuit overseers etc etc etc. Is it possible that one of the Shareholders is a GM executive?-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------What about building materials? Is it possible that one of the shareholders could be an executive for Home Depot or Lowes?------------------------------------------------------------------------------- What if the majority of these shareholders are business men and their companies benefit from doing business with the Watchtower?------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------If all of the above scenarios are possibly true, that still leaves the question--Where is the actual money going?

blondie

What you need to do is look up on Google what a non-profit corporation is. No one individual or group of individuals own it. There are corporation members that vote on actions taken by the corporation. Remember that the structure of the WTS has changed from 1944.

Blondie

*** w01 7/1 p. 30 Annual Meeting October 6, 2001 ***

THE ANNUAL MEETING of the members of the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society of Pennsylvania will be held on October 6, 2001, at the Assembly Hall of Jehovah’s Witnesses, 2932 Kennedy Boulevard, Jersey City, New Jersey. A preliminary meeting of the members only will convene at 9:15 a.m., followed by the general annual meeting at 10:00 a.m.

The members of the corporation should inform the Secretary’s Office now of any change in their mailing addresses during the past year so that the regular letters of notice and proxies can reach them during July.

The proxies, which will be sent to the members along with the notice of the annual meeting, are to be returned so as to reach the Office of the Secretary of the Society not later than August 1. Each member should complete and return his proxy promptly, stating whether he is going to be at the meeting personally or not. The information given on each proxy should be definite on this point, since it will be relied upon in determining who will be present.

It is expected that the entire session, including the formal business meeting and reports, will be concluded by 1:00 p.m. or shortly thereafter. There will be no afternoon session. Because of limited space, admission will be by ticket only. No arrangements will be made for tying in the annual meeting by telephone lines to other auditoriums.

*** yb73 p. 258 Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society of Pennsylvania ***

A little after ten o’clock the annual business meeting was called to order and, by proxy and persons present, there were 423 members of the Pennsylvania corporation in attendance. They reelected as members of the board of directors for three years M. G. Henschel, N. H. Knorr and L. A. Swingle.

Gill

Because the Society is supposedly 'non profit making', does this mean that those shareholders have NO benefits at all for being shareholders?

blondie

That is correct, they don't earn any financial dividends at all. It used to be that they paid $10 a share, but they pay nothing and are now selected based on their "spiritual" qualifications very much like elders are. They are not considered "share-holders" but members.

Blondie

rebel8

I did a pretty time-consuming investigation of this subject last yr, including contact with the NY State tax authorities, IRS, etc. I don't have my notes with me now but you might check the web site of the Russellites (or whatever the name of that group is that follows Russell). They mention it briefly.

What I concluded from the little evidence found was that there were shareholders back when the corporation was formed, as some sort of power play by the founder. There are no longer shareholders, just members with voting privileges.

It would be a violation of NY State law to have stockholders in a nonprofit organization unless their status was disclosed to the government (& from what I can tell, it hasn't been) and the government approved the org to continue operating with that structure (pretty much impossible).

It is also a violation of the law for a currently operating nonprofit org not to disclose to the government that they ever had stockholders, even if it was a long time ago. (hint, wink)

james_woods

Years ago, we had an elderly sister in our congregation who had a share (or shares) of society stock. When she got so feeble that she could not fix out her "proxy" in time, the congregation servant had to go do it for her. Her kids, surprisingly, were not JW, so when she finally passed over a complex scheme was laid to sign the stock back to the society.

The story at the time was that the shares were given out to especially faithful (usually annointed) brothers or sisters who had been around since the days of Rutherford or even Russell. Funny that they didn't trust them to vote their shares on their own, but made them sign over the proxies - !!??

It might also be worth mentioning that the corporation that these shares were for was not the main money-making corporation of the Society. They have a complex web of corporations set up to hide the real ownership. WTBTS New York, Pennsylvania, probably Delaware, etc...

Oh, the tangled web we weave...

garybuss

Communication Services for the Deaf a non-profit

At CSD according to 2004 FY Budget
Benjamin J. Soukup, President/CEO: $729,596
Patty Kuglitsch, Corporate Secretary/Compliacne: $140,634
Randy Gerloff, Corporate Treasurer/Chief Financial Advisory Officer: $357,795
Dr. Roslyn ?Roz? Rosen, Consultant: $105,417
Jim Skjeveland, Senior Vice President of Contact Center Operations: $158,539
Dr. Phil Bravin, Technology & Research and Development Officer: $172,409
Ann Marie Mickelson, Senior Vice President of Interpreting Operations: $212,382

Here, shareholders can receive benefits and services. Like our rural water system, members are the only shareholders and are the only people who can receive certain benefits. Employees and consultants do not have to be shareholders. They can bill for large fees and require large salaries.

For the Watch Tower corporations, I'd look at billed lines for services and per-diem.

Jourles

So if you turned up at the Annual Meeting with an original "Share" of the corporation, could they turn you away? If Ray Franz himself had a share, could they make him leave? Legally, what can they do?

Who are the WT Society Shareholders?

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