Annual meeting 2023....

by mikeflood 12 Replies latest watchtower bible

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  Big Dog

  Ron W, what it means is that you can have a church that is not an organized legal entity. You set up a pulpit and start preaching and you are a DeFacto church. When a church wants to be officially recognized as a not for profit the IRS they will form a not-for-profit corporation and then apply to the IRS for not-for-profit status.

  What the WTBS did was simply remove the "church" element from the corporate entity. This was accomplished by resolutions and consents filed in the corporation so that that religious arm is stand alone and the publishing arm is a separate legal entity. Outwardly not much of an effect and almost no one would notice, but for certain legal and tax purposes a significant distinction.
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  no-zombie

  Hi Ron ... basically Russell founded the WBTS originally as a 'for-profit' business. However was Russell was the 'Faithful and Discrete Slave', which made it a religious organization also. It got bigger and bought more and more properties and expanded internationally. In the course of time, various governments (for various reasons) and market fluctuations began to make some in the WBTS to think that the whole Society could be at risk of collapse if there were financial problems (which some eventuated). By now there were many corporate entities globally and in a move to mitigate problems the GB assigned a new president to split the business side of things, while the GB controlled church doctrine. This was done, so in the worse case scenario, the GB could let parts of the WBTS go bankrupt without its contagion cascading completely.
  

  In reality of course the GB still controls both.
  
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  Ron.W.

  Many thanks for those answers guys. I heard about it at the time and have always wondered exactly why they did it.