Interesting page on finances
by snare&racket 10 Replies latest jw friends
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mauiboy
Interesting stuff.....I have looked for a similar statement for the U.S.A. from the WTB&TS, but have never found one.Has anyone else come across such a thing? Are non-profits and not-for-profits even required to make public such info in the U.S.?
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emeth
Interesting indeed. It shows that despite the biggest financial crisis of the last 80 years (which started in 2008) donations increased with 50% or so between 2008 and 2012. It also shows that donations exceed by far the costs for printing and that they (the british branch) print in more and more languages (in 2008 72 languages and exporting to 69 countries - in 2012 228 languages and exporing to 112 countries).
From my own experience i can say that the Netherlands show about the same picture (increasing donations over the years) and i think this picture is the same in all developed nations. Many say/think that finances of JW´s are in trouble but i think that is only wishfull thinking.
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NewYork44M
One of theproblems with looking at the financial position of a single country is that the is a global empire. It would only be through a consolidated financial statement can you ever come up with conclusions about the finances. That, I suspect will never happen.
I firmly believe that there are money transfers from one country to another to meet certain regulatory requirements and avoid tax issues - so the financial statements do not tell the full picture.
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emeth
@nEWyORKm Explain what kind of tax issues are you talking about?
The financial statements showed here at least do tell something about the british branch. And ofcourse we have more countries than one on this globe but there are no reasons to assume that in other important countries (like France, Italy, Germany, Japan, Canada and the U.S.A) the picture is very different.
The UK indeed transfers money to other countries (but that money is raised in the UK) as is clear from the links provided by snare&racket
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NewYork44M
The organization is set up as a not for profit enterprise. So, I am talking about tax avoidance strategies.
But just to be clear, any auditor will tell you that anytime you have related party transactions, you have a high risk of fraud. There is nothing fradulent in itself in related party transactions. But if somone wanted to manipulate numbers, the easiest way to do it is through related parties. My guess is the globally the watchtower has hundreds of separate corporate entities that qualifiy as related parties.
So, as I explained earlier, unless you are able to see the complete consolidated statements, it is easy to manipulate and deceive.
I hope my explaination is clear.
NY44M, CPA and accounting professor
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jwleaks
Back in the 1993 when WTBTS of Pennsylvania registered as an overseas branch in Britain, they were required to file financial statements. They closed their overseas branch in 1999. However, in doing this they left a trail of financial statements and internal operating structures that have since been obtained and published. These can be downloaded from JWLEAKS:
http://jwleaks.org/watchtower/
A full set of current financial documents and historical documents for WTBTS of Britain, International Bible Students Association (IBSA), and Euopean Association of Jehovah's Christian Witnesses can also be downloaded from JWLEAKS:
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anonymouz
It comes down to the fact Bethel is a billion dollar empire that will abandon JWs with their loot in a "legalized" fashion already inherent in expert manipulation of the financial devices inter-relationship at trans-national scale, and JWs will accept the explanation for the implosions as "the attack on Babylon the Great has begun brothers!", as part of the "Daniel 11:44 is next to fulfill brothers!" which will leave JWs bankrupted organizationally globally in a drawn out process as JWs will be mentally preoccupied with "it is the end of the world brothers!" thinking. (for atleast a couple years in the process).
And the ingenuity of the actual operation and it's diversion to "Bible prophecy is fulfilling brothers!" is already in place in the JW theology that can be applied to any negative development as not only expected, but able to be "applied" for even two or three years of critical implosions, and JWs will be none the wiser but actually aiding the operation while it is completing to the very end. (of Bethel).
Then as the central Bethel communications network also implodes, JWs with zero cross communication network will truly be scattered sheep for potentially a few more years, as the national powers will also be going through engineered national finance implosions heading for a globalized finace system solution that will take a number of years to actually complete.
Rather than "Armageddon" coming as "the end", a globalization cycle will just be getting started as financial first, leading to internationalized governmental globalization next in the process.
Thus the "it can end anyday now brothers!" JW psychology, is contrary to the obvious globalization process duration of finances long before any true internationalized world government beyond the UN schemtic could even be truly possible as having later to absorb national "power and authority". So from JW's own interpretive rules, the end cannot come before a world government completes and makes world proclamations of the completion a many years down the road from even te first national sovereign debt intrigues into default or forgiveness or whatever form the process actually takes.
Thus we are talking years of total JW confusions and no "Armageddon".
It is Bethel that "can end anyday now brothers!". But even that implosion and absorption would take atleast two years to fully tangle up in international scale intrigues the pieces that do not fall into securitized transfer immediately to Bethel creditors. And that is an assumption; Bethel has great wealth, and with that wealth also great extended liabilities I assume in the hedges and derivatives that have also no doubt, if it was this case, have been as secretly reorganized as was the UN NGO, and also for atleast a decade now by the "GB" of WT finances, whoever they may be.
It is looking more and more like a rather ingenious con, rather than a random mishmash of "oversights" and hypocrisy in my opinion. Bethel is a wealth egg simply too hard to pass up, and too easy to compromise. And what further discourages the reverse engineered analysis and theoretical outcomes, is psychological aversion to acceptance of the world national finance compromise and implosions that would have to provide the context worldwide of this Bethel end game operation.
Other than that acceptance of the inevitable (by some external theorists), everything else is already visibly present in JW theology to assist the mechanics of the virtually invisible engine of legal pilllage. Everything in world geo-political awareness of the globalization process indicates it cannot occur to satifactory completion (as a real world government) for a numer of years. Thus JWs are expecting an end scenario way out of sync with developmental reality, way too early in the very system and mechanics of globalization they are supposed to be tracking, but instead went into cahoots with as UN NGO, and are mentally in 1980 in globalism understanding - globalism and globalized basis of world goverment simply does not exist to JWs, the UN schematic on 17 acres in NY state, is the end all "8th King" to mdern JW cavemen.
And that very thinking will greatly aid the final Bethel process.
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snare&racket
It just tells me that branches worldwide are filtering points for cash to Brooklyn=. If you read the 2011 charity returns the IBSA say they think it is beneficial for their members to send its reserves and the large donations to a sister charity in America.
I would love to pay a team of forensic accountants to follow the dollars....
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jgnat
Canadian charities also must publish returns. There is a sizeable transfer to the US branch. Then the trail goes cold.