What is a corporation?
"A corporation is a legal entity that is separate and distinct from its owners. Under the law, corporations possess many of the same rights and responsibilities as individuals. They can enter contracts, loan and borrow money, sue and be sued, hire employees, own assets, and pay taxes."
https://www.investopedia.com/terms/c/corporation.asp
"Corporate personhood or juridical personality is the legal notion that a juridical person such as a corporation, separately from its associated human beings (like owners, managers, or employees), has at least some of the legal rights and responsibilities enjoyed by natural persons. In most countries, a corporation has the same rights as a natural person to hold property, enter into contracts, and sue or be sued." - Wikipedia.
"A legal person is an entity or body which has an existence separate and distinct from the persons (legal or natural) comprising that entity or body."
https://www.gov.uk/hmrc-internal-manuals/vat-registration-manual/vatreg02100
Legal person
"There are therefore two kinds of legal entities: human and non-human. In law, a human person is called a natural person (sometimes also a physical person), and a non-human person is called a juridical person (sometimes also a juridic, juristic, artificial, legal, or fictitious person, Latin: persona ficta)."
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_person
Any corporation used by the Witnesses is "persona ficta," which means "fictitious person" in Latin, as described above. If something is fictitious, it isn't real. Nevertheless, laws passed by the legislative bodies of countries grant corporations the status of real persons. They decree, by law, that they exist, but in reality, they don't.
When any corporation formed by Jehovah's Witnesses (real persons) is sued, you won't see the corporation in court; only its representatives and lawyers show up, which is because the corporation isn't real.
The local congregations of Jehovah's Witnesses are legal entities, not the people that attend services at the Kingdom Halls located on properties owned by corporations.
The Witnesses have claimed that there is a legal organization being used by Jehovah to preach the good news. But this begs the question, "Would Jehovah use something that doesn't exist to preach the good news?" Did this happen in the first century? Did early Christians use a persona ficta to preach the good news?
According to scripture, they were persecuted for preaching the good news. They didn't send lawyers to petition the authorities for permission to preach. They just preached. Why can't Jehovah's Witnesses preach the good news today just like first century Christians did? Why do they create these fictitious entities? What is going on here?
Today, they all associate themselves with their local Kingdom Halls, which are owned by corporations. So why aren't these halls just temples of fictitious entities since the entities are the legal owners of the buildings? If I were to join a congregation of Jehovah's Witnesses, wouldn't I just be attaching myself to that fictitious entity? It would appear that Jehovah's Witnesses cannot function without these fictitious entities. Maybe this is why they acknowledge that they use one, or possibly more, to preach the good news.
I seem to recall a similar problem in ancient Israel. The Israelites were well known to get involved with fictitious entities. These entities were called Baals. There were several different deities who were designated by the name Baal, and each was fictitious, a persona ficta if you will. Baal worship was responsible for the apostasy in Israel and prompted Jehovah to send the prophets to warn the nation of impending punishment if they failed to purge Baal worship from the land.
The Israelites were accused of limping between the sides by worshiping Baal and Jehovah at the same time. This is what is known as syncretism, which is defined as "the amalgamation or attempted amalgamation of different religions, cultures, or schools of thought." (Oxford Languages) It was this syncretism that periodically brought Jehovah's wrath upon the nation.
It is worth considering whether or not this is happening with Jehovah's Witnesses today. The governing body uses corporations to preach the good news and also as a means to control congregations worldwide. It certainly looks eerily similar to the syncretism that resulted from mixing Baal worship with the worship of Jehovah.