France : no more local bank accounts for congregations

by fifth.column 80 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

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  Bella15

  Wow!
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  frankiespeakin

  Well they are a corporation with corporational interest. They want the clasification of a non profit corporation, perhaps a good look into the workings of the legal corporations that the Watchtower uses might be very damming and open them up to tax evasion violations?

  It seems from the "offical" JW-media site that they have had a sort of victory and now they are streching thier muscles so to speak.

  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nonprofit_organization

  Designation as a nonprofit and an intent to make money are not related in the United States. This means nothing can be conferred by the declaration. It is unclear whether or not this holds outside of the U.S. In the United States, such inference is the purpose of the Internal Revenue Code, Section 501(c). The extent to which an NPO can generate surplus revenues may be constrained or use of surplus revenues may be restricted.

  .....

  Most countries have laws which regulate the establishment and management of NPOs, and which require compliance withcorporate governance regimes. Most larger organizations are required to publish their financial reports detailing their income and expenditure publicly. In many aspects they are similar to corporate business entities though there are often significant differences. Both not-for-profit and for-profit corporate entities must have board members, steering committee members, or trustees who owe the organization a fiduciary duty of loyalty and trust. A notable exception to this involveschurches, which are often not required to disclose finances to anyone, including church members.

  http://www.jw-media.org/fra/index.htm

  France ordered to pay millions for illegal taxation of Jehovah’s Witnesses

  http://www.jw-media.org/fra/20120705.htm

  STRASBOURG, France—The European Court of Human Rights ruled today that the government of France must pay over 4.5 million euros ($5,600,000 US approx.) for full restitution to Jehovah’s Witnesses for violating their religious freedom through illegal taxation.

  Last year, on June 30, 2011, the European Court ruled that the government of France violated the rights of Jehovah’s Witnesses when it attempted to impose a retroactive 60 percent tax on all religious donations made by Jehovah’s Witnesses in France between 1993 and 1996. The Court invited the parties to resolve the matter amicably, but because the government maintained that the excessive taxation was not illegal, a friendly settlement was impossible.

  In today’s decision, the government was ordered to remove “all consequences” of the tax. In addition to returning the 4,590,295 euros ($5,749,439.50 US approx.) that were confiscated at the time that the taxation was imposed, plus interest, the government is to pay the Witnesses 55,000 euros ($68,888.64 US approx.) for legal costs and expenses. It is expected that full restitution will also include removing all liens ormortgages from the facilities owned and used by the Witnesses in Louviers.

  J. R. Brown, a spokesman for the Witnesses at their world headquarters in New York, commented: “Clearly, these efforts by the government of France to financially stop our Bible education work in France did not succeed. We rejoice over this development, along with our fellow believers and other citizens of France who appreciate their right to accept or reject our Christian message.”
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  frankiespeakin

  Video of WT Societies Lawyer Philip Brumley(top lawyer for WT) Gloating over victory with France taxation of them as a religion:

  http://www.jw-media.org/vid/fra/france-victory-echr-e.htm

  J.R. Brown, Office of Public Information, tel. +1 718 560 5600

  Commentary by Bruno Faure

  http://www.jw-media.org/vid/fra/france-victory-echr-f.htm

  France: Guy Canonici, tel. +33 2 32 25 55 55
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  frankiespeakin

  Well we can only hope that the JWs in France stop giving contributions. In that way they can turn no profit and truley be a non profit organization, or at least a lossing profits organization.

  I hope a good expose in french on the internet may do its part to turn it around from a profit to loosing profit organization. Time will tell but I think it will happen.
• 

  prologos

  sign I have seen in some businesses: "We are a non-profit organization. we did not plan it that way, but thats how it turned out"
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  frankiespeakin

  I'm thinking the Kingdom halls in France will be running in the deficits in the very near future because of the Governing Body's announcement of thier failed predictions in the january edition of the WT.

  They eventually will loose money and run in the red or in negative figures forcing the combining of congregations and sell offs of kindom hall properties.
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  james_woods

  Just back to the original post - have we had any verification of this (end of local congregation bank accounts in France) by an actual letter or by other observervations?
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  frankiespeakin

  It is a terrible thing to hand over your bank account to a bunch of guys who have a narsistic personality disorder, and live under the delusion that they are spokesmen for God almighty. Might as well just kiss that money good buy.
• 

  fifth.column

  Sorry, the letter was not on the board, and I did not take any risk by asking for it. I'm already looked suspicious (lost privileges...) after I raised some questions to check some things I read here (was not a good idea....questions of course!). No more information from my part for the moment on this subject. But some other posters from Europe confirmed that same kind of arrangement in their countries (sometimes only for the saving account).
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  james_woods

  I see, fifth column. Very interesting.