How have Jehovah`s Witnesses ever gotten away with being a Tax Exempt Religion ?

by smiddy3 22 Replies latest jw friends

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  smiddy3

  I can never get my head around this one ? Don`t the powers that be ever really investigate religions that claim exemption from paying taxes because they claim they are a Not For Profit Religion ?

  You would have to be a brain dead imbecile not to see that the religion known as the" Watchtower Bible and Tract Society" otherwise known as "Jehovah`s Witnesses" are nothing more than a Religious Publishing House that have made x amount of $$$$$ over the years since their inception in the late 1800`s to this day. And at the same time a massive Real Estate Enterprise that has amassed Billions of $$$$ in Real Estate Deals over this same period of time .

  How in the world they can be classed as a Not For Profit Religion beggars belief .

  Now don`t get me started on how they have been classed as a Charitable organization ,a charity ?

  When they do no charitable works whatsoever ? They in fact pass over their old and infirm over to the religious organizations they condemn as False religions and the governments ,who they don`t supprt , to look after them.

  They do nothing to help and support any of there members passing them off as merely volunteers who they have no obligation to look after .

  Many members who have served in the religion for 40,50,60 and more years are cast off without any assistance ,no financial help from the religion and told the Govts and religious institutions are what they can take advantage of .
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  BoogerMan

  Not just JW's - how much tax-free cash do the Catholic Church and Latter Day Saints (Mormons) rake in every year? JW's are nowhere near those two in terms of income.

  Even bigger question: Why does the U.S. government permit such alleged charities to conceal their income/expenditure?

  Perhaps the present "crisis" will prompt some governments to decide that it's now time for religions to pay their share of the monumental financial burden which ordinary taxpayers are now facing.
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  Still Totally ADD

  Smiddy3 I agree with you but I feel it would be a slippery slope to go down. If governments go after the borg and win in court then they could go after all places of faith. Then set up their own state religion. Less free country's have done that.

  BoogerMan I don't know about other religions but I do know about our little UU congregation. We have to keep meticulously books showing where every penny goes and comes. No concealing of income or expenditures. But we are not a mega church. That's where the real money making is. Still Totally ADD
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  MeanMrMustard

  A nonprofit business does not mean the business makes no profit.
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  JoenB75

  You pay taxes if your activity is business related. JWs are mostly giving away litterature and videos
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  Biahi

  Also, the Catholic Church does provide REAL charity to people, and they don’t require those they help to be a member. I know someone, a lazy scammer, who has the local CC to pay her electric bill every month, and she is not Catholic.
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  Finkelstein

  There has been a lot so called self identifying religious organizations based in the US that were really businesses hiding behind a nonprofit tax exempt religion.

  What makes the WTS/JWS stand out is that all the money it accumulates does not go out to help in local communities as in charities to help the disadvantaged.

  This religious Publishing house is one that really was a business that exploited people's belief in the bible, the leaders interpretations of the bible and to push a tainted commercialized version of the Gospel of Jesus.

  Exploiting tax exempt status by the WTS's leaders goes as far back as the early 1900's with the likes of J Rutherford. He intentionally deeded the property of a luxury home which he lived in San Diego as a relgoius compound to exempt from paying any local property taxes. He used the money of the WTS to live a luxury lifestyle, helped no doubt by the tax exempt "Religious" organization he ran the WTS./JWS.

  
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  eyeuse2badub

  All organized religions are a business and businesses need profit to continue to be viable! WT is no different but I agree that religion shoud be paying at least some taxes.

  just saying!
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  Vidiot

  smiddy3 - "How have Jehovah's Witnesses ever gotten away with being a tax exempt religion?"

  Some of us actually discussed this a couple weeks back in this thread:

  https://www.jehovahs-witness.com/topic/162383/watchtower-admits-false-prophesy-court-law

  To recap, in Rutherford's day, quite a few things about the WTS were overhauled.

  To the best of our understanding, the Federal Government had begun to fine-tune a specific set of criteria that American religious groups had to meet in order to acquire "charity" status, and the leadership adjusted a fair number of aspects of the Society's ideology and structure to meet the (bare) minimum requirements.

  If anyone was asked, this was - ostensibly - done to ensure (their own) religious freedoms, and/or enable missionary work in harder-to-reach places (not unlike the Org's short-lived and - ultimately - embarrassing UN-NGO status in the late 90s)...

  ...but...

  ...I personally suspect that the sweet siren call of tax exemption was the primary motivating factor.
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  Pete Zahut

  3 hours ago
  You pay taxes if your activity is business related. JWs are mostly giving away litterature and videos

  That's why a number of years ago they went to the "contribution or donation" method when JW"s get the literature at the Hall. They said this was a loving simplification to make things easier for the brothers but in reality it was because the Feds found out they were selling the literature to the publishers in the Kingdom Hall without collecting the required sales tax. They aren't giving anything away in fact I believe they found that they wound up collecting more money this way because the "brothers" ended up shelling out more when they donated than they would have if they had paid directly. Thus evidence of Jehovah's approval of the new arrangement.