Thanks Barbara.
The UK WTS companies' accounts documents for 2015 are currently available to download and here's information plus links
by AndersonsInfo 15 Replies latest jw friends
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konceptual99
Thanks for the information Barbara!
I've not looked at the figures closely enough but the IBSA accounts show voluntary income of around 32m, 10m (!) up on last year. I don't know if any of this incorporates funds from other countries either directly or via one of the other UK WTS entities but that's an extraordinary amount of money per capita.
I would imagine that a large amount of this is due to the money grab from the halls where they have had bulk transfers of cash stashed in congregation accounts as well as substantial monthly donations from each congregation. If this is the case then I would suggest that their strategy is to replace the income from literature with the back door rent on the halls.
I also suspect that expert analysis will reveal they are moving the money around to avoid it being somewhere where it could be extracted through litigation and/or a change in their tax status.
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slimboyfat
Removing money from local congregations may improve finances at headquarters in the short term, but I suspect the loss of congregations' financial autonomy will result in lower donations.
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konceptual99
I've just done a skim of some past years data to see if there are any obvious trends or patterns and TBH I can't see anything outstanding. For example, in 2012 IBSA had voluntary income of £28m, not far off last year's amount, and this was before the KH grab.
I don't really have time to try and look at all the data but even then I think really it needs some expert accounting analysis before you could hope to come up with anything concrete. The WTS is expert in moving money around the world and in using things like building projects to pull in dosh so it really obfuscates many of the conclusions that might otherwise be more clear.
My personal opinion is that they have plenty of income and cash on hand to keep going for years and years. The only thing that would really hurt is large legal settlements and they are super expert at keeping those things in the legal system for years.
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Vidiot
slimboyfat - "...if they manage to avoid a crisis in these circumstances, they should be regarded as strategic geniuses."
Well, that pretty much guarantees that they're royally f**ked. :smirk:
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Mephis
Provision of serviced facilities is an internal book keeping charge for the use of the bethel in London and costs of having bethelites etc. The accounts are (independently) audited. It would be fraudulent to 'hide' court costs. Having a pet QC and legal staff may well be covered under serviced facilities but the costs of those will be pretty similar every year regardless of litigation. Actual legal fees will almost inevitably end up under 'exceptional items' in the accounting year they go out - which will be the year ending August 2016, or possibly even August 2017 depending on when they are forced to pay up.
On general financial state, they've doubled their reserves to £40m which they estimate will allow them to run for a year without any further donations coming in. So they're not broke in Britain. But they do seem to be shifting money around Europe again (see 'grants' increase to £15m) which easily explains at least half of the increase of money going in to British branch.