Reasons for leak and building stop story

by Gorbatchov 23 Replies latest jw friends

• 

  Vidiot

  konceptual99 - " What if the WTS can see the writing on the wall and has calculated it's better paying taxes, staying under the radar but doing a massive downscale?"

  I think there's a very good chance that's what's happened.

  However, ultra-conservative groups don't adapt to rapid change easily... if what you're suggesting is the case, it looks as though they're being forced to step up the timetable.

  I'd argue that the changes the Society is trying to implement are becoming too radical and too rapid for them to be truly effective.
• 

  wannaexit

  heard from other forums that the halt is to channel all donations to the completion of Warwick. Screw the little witness group in some remote area that needs a roof over their meetings. Send all money to the pigs that need better things in the farmers house.
  
• 

  Half banana

  I have an inkling that they are already preparing for functioning fully on a commercial model rather than a charitable status.

  A KH attendee friend of mine (a JW but non-believer) heard from the platform in the UK that in future new congregations will start out as non-charitable, tax paying enterprises! The approved new designs for KHs certainly look like unlovely, utilitarian commercial "units" rather than traditional places for worship.

  Doomsday cults have built into them a limited shelf life, one way for their puppeteers to keep possession of the the money would be to morph into a more honest commercial business such as property development and as the true believers fall away, eventually ditch the religious nonsense. What would they care as long as they controlled the cash?

  A paradigm for this would be in the fall of communism in Soviet Russia; it was the old party leaders and their friends who became the fabulously wealthy oligarchs in their new sham democracy.
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  notsurewheretogo

  They are only leaked to exjw's though....I've asked still-ins and they have no idea.
• 

  Finkelstein

  As an organization that has had a long history of lies and dishonesty, one can never assume too much.

  There appears to be cracks opening up within this organization that are starting to show its own inherent corruption.

  The call for more money when the organization has never been richer, the persuading of children to give up their own money for the organization. the list goes on .........

  Perhaps the GB heads got drunk with money when they sold off all of those branches around the world, including the main Brooklyn branch to a tune of well over a billion dollars.
  
• 

  Vidiot

  Half banana - "A KH attendee friend of mine (a JW but non-believer) heard from the platform in the UK that in future new congregations will start out as non-charitable, tax paying enterprises..."

  Five years ago, I would have said "no f**king way".

  These days, though? Way more believable.
• 

  NewYork44M

  Since this is all speculation here is what I suspect (based upon my audit experience as a CPA).

  Perhaps they had a external reviewer set a price tag on a contingent liability for pending lawsuit payments (a contingent liability is one where it is probable that you have to pay and the amount is reasonably estimable).

  I suspect they were given an amount that they need to hold as a reserve that was so high that they had no cash left over to do anything else - including maintain operations.

  Pure speculation - but this is how these things work in the real world.
• 

  Vidiot

  The "real world"...

  ...irritatingly encroaching on WT ideology since its inception...
• 

  username

  We have to take the Australian Royal commission into consideration here too. To all intents and purposes it does look likely the recommendation will be to set up a compensatory scheme. This will be enforced and there will be no right to appeal this decision. Although this will be limited to Australian nationals, it will still run into the millions I suspect!
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  Incognito

  Although this will be limited to Australian nationals, it will still run into the millions I suspect!
  

  While it maybe limited to Australia initially, I suspect other countries will be watching and may use the ARC as an example to follow.