changes in how the society does their taxes. why?

Calliope

i just got off the phone with my dad, who has some kind of responsibility in his KH, i forget all the terms now, but he does the accounting. he's told me that they no longer have congregations doing their individual tax returns, but the society does it all now.

so i innocently asked what that means "like you don't tabulate the donations anymore, you send the info to the society, and they submit it to the government?"

answer: "yes".

so, what does that mean? my knowledge of business tax returns is very limited, so why would the society choose to do these themselves rather than have individuals from each congregation do it? does it mean they control what gets submitted? the government does not track donation receipts, so the society could be submitting falsefied tax info?

perhaps there is someone here who had been accountant for their congregation back in the day, that can shed some light on what could be behind such a move.

cal.

Bumble Bee

Not sure how things work in the Netherlands, but here in Canada, if you want to hang on to your "Charity" status you must file an income tax return. Each congregation is responsible for their own return. Maybe enough of the congregations were not doing this and losing their "status" and the "society" is making sure each return is filed by them so that doesn't happen? Just a thought.

BB

garybuss

Now we know what they are using all the sky scrapers in New York for. They have untrained volunteers trying to do 100,000 tax returns.

Is Bethel doing the returns for free? Or are they charging the congregations? Why do I think I already know the answer?

jaguarbass

It's not likely many here would know or understand the tax situation in the Netherlands.

In america The Wactower society is a pulp magazine publishing business. As with all business they will use the tax system to their advantage to improve the bottom line.

rebel8

In the US most small nonprofit orgs have not had to do tax returns.

Now some will have to do them. http://www.irs.gov/charities/article/0,,id=169250,00.html

Looks like churches will have to file an annual form, if I'm reading this right. http://www.irs.gov/charities/article/0,,id=139223,00.html

So it sounds like this is GREAT NEWS. We will be able to exercise our FOIL rights and get kingkongregation financial records now.