Forbes Magazine On Ron Weinland's Prophecy Failure and Conviction

Forbes Magazine is running an short article about the epic failure of Ron Weinland's end of the world prediction and his conviction for tax evasion.  Click on the article headline for the entire story.

Taxes

6/21/2012 @ 12:07PM |415 views

Man Who Touted 'End of the World' Guilty of Tax Evasion

Apparently, Weinland wasn’t completely convinced that he was going to heaven. In 2002, he announced that he would begin preparing for the second coming of Christ. And by preparing, he meant redirecting church funds to a Swiss bank account and carrying jewels and precious metals with him, since he would need liquid assets for bartering when the financial system crashed (I guess that was the back-up plan if the Swiss didn’t come through).

And all the time that he’s been preparing, the IRS and the Departmnet of Justice were watching with interest. On November 10, 2011, Weiland was indicted by a federal grand jury on five charges of tax evasion. The allegations included that he had understated his income on federal tax returns, used church funds for personal use and failed to report that Swiss bank account.

Despite the fact that he believed the world would end, Weinland set himself up pretty well. He lived in a nearly $400,000 home, where he used church money to pay for security. He wore expensive suits and went shopping at Nordstrom, allegedly on the church’s tab. On his taxes, he deducted stays at Las Vegas casinos and other tony venues, defending them as meetings with his followers.

My favorite lines from the story are:

Not surprisingly, the jury – who were all still on earth when Weinland’s trial arrived – didn’t buy his excuses.

The feds didn’t buy it. And more importantly, the jury didn’t buy it. Let’s hope God is more understanding when it comes to tax evasion.