Any financial types out there who like browsing through 990 tax forms? I don’t understand this stuff at all, but I’ve been sent the publicly available stuff for Ken Ham’s organizations: the 2015 AiG 990 and 2015 Crosswater Canyon 990. It’s all fairly mundane. All I learned was that AiG’s total revenues went up by about a million dollars over the previous year, to about $22.5 million, that the Creation “Museum” is losing money, and that Ham employs 8 relatives on his staff. Nice racket.
I don’t see anything otherwise dodgy in the report, but then I wouldn’t. Anything jumping out at you tax wizards?
Even Noah got to take only 7 relatives on his ride…
Pierce, he needed the 7 to keep shoveling tons of manure from hundreds of animals. Ken needs at least that to shovel all the bullshit.
It’s usually pretty easy to hide stuff in operational expenses. The preferred way for religious con-artists to funnel money around is though benefits: the pastor gets a car which belongs to the church, but he has its exclusive use. The pastor gets ‘residence’ provided by the church. The pastor’s expenses are covered by the church. A full-up forensic accounting analysis would require access to the bills that are being paid, and to whom.
Their organization mission:
“We proclaim the absolute truth and authority of the Bible with boldness.”
Uh, yeah. Yeech.
The dirt will probably be in payments for services provided by family. Who arranged the printing of the newsletter that cost $300,000 and was there “overhead” and maybe some “production fees” and stuff like that. But there may not be any… They may just be honest salt of the earth christian liars.
Wow, $2mil worth of Tshirts and printed crap. That’s a lot of printed crap.
Oh, and Joseph David advertising agency in Philadelphia: $848,000 – wow, that’s a lotta dough. And what’s amazing is that google doesn’t show any business like Joseph David Advertising Agency in Philadelphia. Maybe it’s just some friend of the family, who gets really big checks and deposits them into an offshore company? Not even an address – maybe they’re a “virtual” company. As in ‘imaginary’. UPDATE: Appears to go by “JDA” and one of its partners is a board member.
If you look at the 2nd item, Cenveo Publisher Services (also Philadelphia) they appear to be a real business – pages of google hits and an actual address.
Down to the itemized lists:
Salaries and wages: $8mil (I ran a software company of 64 employees with office space and IT infrastructure, etc, with a $5mil run rate. So I am guessing there are some highly compensated staff)
Other employee benefits: $900,0000. I guess Ham has a nice company car. So do all the Hamlets. And a house. And a boat. That’s annual so it’s probably a lease on a fleet of Bentleys or something.
Office expenses: $2.4mil. Wow, they have nice offices.
The fun stuff is usually in Schedule J, which is benefits over $150,000 reportable to executives.
We see: Housing allowance, Discretionary fund, Travel for companion.
Ham’s declared income is ~$200,000. Not bad for an ignoramus.
There are also some transactions: Brad Benbow looks o e
Travel: $400,000. I guess Ham flies 1st class all the way.
Then there are transactions. A list of $ to the Hamsters:
Renee Hodge (daughter of CEO) $38,000
Joseph Johnson (son in law of CEO) $33,542
Jeremy Ham (son of CEO) $43,709
Kristel Ham (Daughter of CEO) $26,261
David Hodge (son in law of CEO) $67,951
Stephen Ham (brother of CEO) $86,141
Susan Ham (daughter in law of CEO) $11,641
Tricia Ham (sister in law of CEO) $15,110
And then there is the Manther family, who appear to be pretty nepotistic as well – they run “Takenbac Enterprises” which is owned by AiG – so presumably this is another family run operation…
Dan Manther (board member) $416,344
Jim Manther (family of Dan Manther) $99,113
Mark Manther (family of Dan Manther) $99,113
Tim Manther (family of Dan Manther) $99,131
Tom Manther (family of Dan Manther) $99,113
So the Manthers have scheduled the ownership of their spin-off so that they fall below $100k. Nice.
It doesn’t look like this is particularly fraudulent other than that the entire family is using the company as a piggy bank. And I do mean “piggy”
Marcus @3,
Wrong word, there.
He is the equivalent of a PhD when it comes to fleecing his flock and rorting* the system.
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* Scamming/manipulating/taking advantage of, for those who don’t use that idiom.
PS and so is Donald Trump, alas. :|
The fact that he pays any taxes at all is a bloody miracle.
No need to break the law when you can legally put money from the company into your own pocket.
I’m curious if all those “goods” and “services” resulted in sales tax payments. It occurs that a group of people that want to pass the money around amongst themselves in order to hide ugly financial truths might not like the government having a sip each time the jug changes hands.