Jehovah’s Witnesses charity the Kingdom Hall Trust’s total reserves and property assets have reached £222m after more than 1,279 religious congregations merged into it, newly filed documents show.
Likely to be one of the largest charity mergers ever, the process began in early 2019 to relieve “administrative burdens from individuals wherever possible”, according to the charity’s latest annual report.
As a result, in the three years since August 2019, the charity’s total assets grew from £9.6m to £222m.
In its latest report, the charity says it will “continue to look for opportunities to purchase new Kingdom Halls of Jehovah’s Witnesses”.
Donated assets caused spikes in income
As congregations merged into the Kingdom Halls Trust (KHT), their assets were recorded as the KHT’s income.
This led to its income rising from £6.66m in 2018-19 to more than £100m in the following two years.
But as the mergers completed in the year ending August 2022, the charity’s income fell back down to £30.9m, with its total expenditure at £24.8m.
The charity’s latest accounts show an income stream of £12m in donated assets from merging congregations and over £17m from donations, a decrease of over 41% on the year prior (£29m).
Some £4m was spent on “providing places of worship for Jehovah’s Witnesses” and £6m was spent on assisting congregations of Jehovah’s Witnesses.
The accounts read: “During the year the trust completed the merge of congregation charities in England and Wales. Over 45,000 payments were made, and the supply of utilities for Kingdom Halls continued to be moved across to consolidated billing systems.
“As this responsibility was formerly spread across many individual charities, this is a good measure of how the trust has relieved beneficiaries of administrative processes during the year.”
Donations to Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society
Kingdom Hall Trust does not fundraise from the general public. However, the charity’s accounts state that the trustees and their spouses donated a total of £1,860 to the charity in 2022.
Over the financial year, £14m was donated to the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society of Britain to further their charitable purposes which the charity deems similar to its own.
This compares to the previous financial year, when Kingdom Hall Trust donated £21m to Watch Tower.
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