Post by landdownunder on Mar 22, 2024 15:20:04 GMT -5
All the hallmarks of an evil cult, today's news report ATO raids Exclusive Brethren.
The Australian Tax Office conducted an extraordinary unannounced raid this week on the global headquarters of businesses run by the conservative Christian sect the Exclusive Brethren searching for evidence of misuse of funds by high-net-worth individuals in the church.
Global leader and Sydney-based “Man of God” Bruce D. Hales had travelled overseas at the time of the raid, but former members of his flock believe he has returned to hold meetings this weekend.
The sect, now known as the Plymouth Brethren Christian Church (PBCC), is a closed organisation which preaches a “hatred” for people outside the church. Women are treated as second-class citizens and homosexuality is not tolerated.
Its followers, known to each other as “saints”, believe Hales is “so close to the Lord Jesus that he can feel his heartbeat”.
Hales, who travels the world in a $20,000 per hour private jet, tells his flock to “charge the highest price to the worldly people” – including governments and other businesses – in a doctrine known as “spoiling the Egyptians”. In 2002 he preached: “The world is there for our using up of it … the world is there to take what we want from it, and leave everything we don’t want. Spoil the Egyptians as quick and as fast as you can.”
Starting on Tuesday, Australian Tax Office officials swept into an address in the “Precinct” in Herb Elliott Avenue in the Sydney suburb of Olympic Park, and raided the head offices of a number of Brethren-run companies and its school system, OneSchool Global. Investigators confiscated documents, computers, phones and other material.
The ATO declined to comment on the raid, saying it could not discuss details of the tax affairs of any individual or entity. However, a document obtained by this masthead shows the raid was an “access without prior notice” visit run by the ATO’s Private Wealth – Behaviours of Concern section, which is within its Wealth program.
A senior staff member of the Brethren’s “parent company”, Universal Business Team, or UBT, downplayed the raid in a note to staff as the organisation “working with the ATO to support with a regular audit”.
But ATO documentation confirms it conducts access without prior notice raids “only in exceptional circumstances including suspected tax evasion, fraud, secrecy or concealment, and where we have a reasonable belief that documents may be disposed of, altered or destroyed”
The Age has also learned that businesses in Goulburn whose owners run the Brethren’s public-facing charity, the Rapid Relief Team, were also raided by the Tax Office on Tuesday.
Church spokesman and Melbourne businessman Lloyd Grimshaw said the church “does not operate any businesses or occupy offices at the location where the ATO has visited”, but added there were “a lot of members of our church, including senior members, who work really hard to build profitable businesses”.
He did not answer a question about whether the church would co-operate with the Tax Office investigation.
A spokesperson for UBT said the company had “always sought to abide by the rules set by Australian Taxation Office, and of course we are cooperating fully with their current information gathering process.”
The Age has spoken to six former members of the religion who believe the Tax Office investigation was examining what the church calls its “ecosystem” – a complex web of interwoven businesses and tax-free entities including charities and schools. The sources cannot be identified because they fear retribution against their families who are still inside the sect.
The MySchool website shows that between government funding of about $40 million last year as well as millions in tax-exempt donations from the flock and its attached businesses, each Brethren student’s education is funded at between $30,000 and $50,000.
However, they are prevented by their religion from going to university, and young Brethren women are destined, after a short stint in family businesses, to be married with children.
A former Australian politician and Prime Minister, John Howard, was protective of this church cult for whatever reasons. The Exclusive Brethren are purported to have donated large sums of money to the right-wing Liberal Party in Australia, despite the fact that they do not participate in democracy by voting in elections.
Power corrupts, and when it involves the incredibly strong control over minds of those in the grip of an exclusive religion coupled with vast wealth, the potential is enormous.
The Australian Tax Office conducted an extraordinary unannounced raid this week on the global headquarters of businesses run by the conservative Christian sect the Exclusive Brethren searching for evidence of misuse of funds by high-net-worth individuals in the church.
Global leader and Sydney-based “Man of God” Bruce D. Hales had travelled overseas at the time of the raid, but former members of his flock believe he has returned to hold meetings this weekend.
The sect, now known as the Plymouth Brethren Christian Church (PBCC), is a closed organisation which preaches a “hatred” for people outside the church. Women are treated as second-class citizens and homosexuality is not tolerated.
Its followers, known to each other as “saints”, believe Hales is “so close to the Lord Jesus that he can feel his heartbeat”.
Hales, who travels the world in a $20,000 per hour private jet, tells his flock to “charge the highest price to the worldly people” – including governments and other businesses – in a doctrine known as “spoiling the Egyptians”. In 2002 he preached: “The world is there for our using up of it … the world is there to take what we want from it, and leave everything we don’t want. Spoil the Egyptians as quick and as fast as you can.”
Starting on Tuesday, Australian Tax Office officials swept into an address in the “Precinct” in Herb Elliott Avenue in the Sydney suburb of Olympic Park, and raided the head offices of a number of Brethren-run companies and its school system, OneSchool Global. Investigators confiscated documents, computers, phones and other material.
The ATO declined to comment on the raid, saying it could not discuss details of the tax affairs of any individual or entity. However, a document obtained by this masthead shows the raid was an “access without prior notice” visit run by the ATO’s Private Wealth – Behaviours of Concern section, which is within its Wealth program.
A senior staff member of the Brethren’s “parent company”, Universal Business Team, or UBT, downplayed the raid in a note to staff as the organisation “working with the ATO to support with a regular audit”.
But ATO documentation confirms it conducts access without prior notice raids “only in exceptional circumstances including suspected tax evasion, fraud, secrecy or concealment, and where we have a reasonable belief that documents may be disposed of, altered or destroyed”
The Age has also learned that businesses in Goulburn whose owners run the Brethren’s public-facing charity, the Rapid Relief Team, were also raided by the Tax Office on Tuesday.
Church spokesman and Melbourne businessman Lloyd Grimshaw said the church “does not operate any businesses or occupy offices at the location where the ATO has visited”, but added there were “a lot of members of our church, including senior members, who work really hard to build profitable businesses”.
He did not answer a question about whether the church would co-operate with the Tax Office investigation.
A spokesperson for UBT said the company had “always sought to abide by the rules set by Australian Taxation Office, and of course we are cooperating fully with their current information gathering process.”
The Age has spoken to six former members of the religion who believe the Tax Office investigation was examining what the church calls its “ecosystem” – a complex web of interwoven businesses and tax-free entities including charities and schools. The sources cannot be identified because they fear retribution against their families who are still inside the sect.
The MySchool website shows that between government funding of about $40 million last year as well as millions in tax-exempt donations from the flock and its attached businesses, each Brethren student’s education is funded at between $30,000 and $50,000.
However, they are prevented by their religion from going to university, and young Brethren women are destined, after a short stint in family businesses, to be married with children.
A former Australian politician and Prime Minister, John Howard, was protective of this church cult for whatever reasons. The Exclusive Brethren are purported to have donated large sums of money to the right-wing Liberal Party in Australia, despite the fact that they do not participate in democracy by voting in elections.
Power corrupts, and when it involves the incredibly strong control over minds of those in the grip of an exclusive religion coupled with vast wealth, the potential is enormous.