Before I left they had started doing this in my area a few years ago. Basically, pay your bills, any extra send to the org so they can get the benefits of accrued interest. It was put to a vote in my cong, but of course it was approved.
New congregation accounting system
by thedog1 58 Replies latest watchtower bible
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jgnat
...or control freaks.
The reason accounts are read is because according to your charitable charter, all members have a say on how their contributions are spent. Rubber stamp, sure, but that's the legality of it. I think this is an illegal takeover of the financial affairs of the legally separate entities that are the congregations.
Will this new central account report to the congregation how their donations are being spent? How about interest earned? Thought not.
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thedog1
I'm surprised that it is not in action in the US so far. Maybe there are laws there that make it non-applicable. It is definitely going ahead in other countries.
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St George of England
That is all new to me, though I am in the UK so it may be different from other countries.
We have a 'new' accounting system (about 2 years now) that is really just a WTS spreadsheet system that the funds are entered on after each meeting. The details remain on the computer and are printed out at the end of the month. In fact the sheets are basically what we have had for years, the Accounts Sheet, Monthly Accounts Report and Reconciliation; now all computerised. It is in fact quite a good system and helps prevent simple arithmetic errors.
Nothing else has changed, we still have our Bank Accounts for congregation expenses and we have a joint account and corresponding Bank account with the other congregations sharing the KH. All congregations contribute a fixed amount to the joint account each month. This is overseen by the Joint Operating Committee and gas, electricity, phone etc are paid out of this account.
However, congregations have for some years been 'encouraged' to send any spare money, over and above that required for a few months operations, to the WTS. These are called Funds on Deposit and are basically free loans to the WTS. If the congregation needs the money back they can (in theory) simply request any or all of it at any time.
The Charity Commission made some changes last year to 'small donations' and this means tax can be claimed back without a Gift Aid declaration, up to £10,000 per year.
I would not be surprised however if the system you are speaking about is implemented in the future, the WTS are stripping assets from the publishers and this would fit in with their money grabbing plans.
George
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paladin
Any extra funds you have just send it to headquarters The GB will generously invest your money. Money is evil, but dont't worry about it.
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thedog1
In our cong it is seen to be, 'let's keep just what we need for bare overheads, and send all the rest to the new account.' Trying to figure out just what we would need to cover a few months expenses, what with co's expenses etc. What is hard for us is that we no longer have a congregation account. The only accounts which have relevance for us now are this new account which is, to all intents and purposes , run by the branch office, and the Joint Operating committee account, into which we only send a fixed amount each month. So if we send any extra to the new central account, we cannot access the money without a request to the branch.
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oppostate
Here's the skinny on how our congregation does it's banking, here in New England.
There are two congregations sharing the hall, one, the downtown territory, with a lot of old JWs the other one in the suburbs.
Both congregations pay an operating committee whatever the committee feels they need for KH maintenance, they've got 14000 in the bank but this info is only shared with other elders and Mins at the monthly operating committee meeting.
All you hear from the podium are the local accounts being read out. The local brother says how much we're behind on the operating committees goal for the month. Everything from the boxes to Worldwide work and KH builing fund gets sent to the Branch.
If there's extra from what we send in to the operating committee the elders may vote to send it to the WT or to put it in an account where the WT has control of the money. If local contributions aren't enough for the month, the operating committee can take from the account in control of the WT after some paperwork since the now 14000 in the operating committee's account doesn't belong to the local congregation but the WT holds the money for the operating committee. If there's no money to cover the operating committe's goals from the local cong's then as a last resort they can request to withdraw from this 14000+ when needed, that is with WT go ahead.
This way the ever increasing operating committee sums are kept from the R&F and only those appointed know how much there's in that kitty. The R&F is always made to feel that local contributions are barely making it and encouraged to contribute more.
It's a very productive scam for the WT.
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NewYork44M
WOW
I agree WOW. I would like to get confirmation of this. This means the wt is acting as a bank and controls the money. It will be interesting how hard they make it to get funds out of the account and back to the congregation. I was account servant for years, this sounds like a nightmare.
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St George of England
@thedog1
Have you ever seen a copy of the "Instructions for Congregation Accounting" (S-27-E Bi 5/12)? If so take a look and see what date is on them. The edition I have is May 2012 (5/12) and as far as I am aware these are the latest instructions.
Are you sure someone in your congregation has not fully understood what is required? Ask to see the instructions, if the Accounts Servant refuses to show you, see the Elders. The AGM for each congregation is only a couple of months away, tell them you will create a fuss then if your questions are not answered to your satisfaction.
George
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neverendingjourney
This is probably way off topic, but I could have ripped the congregation off big time back when I was assistant account servant or whatever it was called (it's been way too long). About half the elders and servants lacked a high school degree. None had gone to college. They were completely ill-prepared to do the simplest accounting task. Preparing the weekly bank deposit was an hour-long affair.
When the audit would come around, the elder doing the auditing would read the instructions from the society and would be absolutely clueless. He would read some questions, joke about how he didn't have a clue what it was saying, check the right box, laugh and say "you did that right guys", and we'd all have a laugh and go on about our business. Duplicate receipts weren't kept. A book study conductor could simply create a receipt saying there were 5 dollars in donations when there were actually 20 and pocket the difference.
Luckily for the Witnesses, I never saw any evidence of thievery. The donations were typically pretty pitiful, so the caper would be an extremely small one. I was a kid when they were still selling the magazines, but I imagine the temptation to steal would have been a lot bigger then as hundreds of dollars were being collected.
To bring this back to a point that's on-topic, although I think any theft is probably a minor problem, electronic payment, donations by credit card, etc. would all but eliminate it. There's always the off-chance that some hacker JW could figure out a way to game the system, but honestly how many of those could possibly exist?