The Rawat cult is legally a church, so they don't have to disclose any information about how much money is raised, or where it goes, and even though many more reputable churches do it voluntarily, the Rawat cult (Elan Vital) does not.

The hypocrisy of Rawat blathering on about how what he offers isn't a religoin, compared with his taking advantage of the tax laws as a church is just one of the many that seems not to bother him in the least.

Also, (and you may have already read about this here and on EPO), "gifts" that are given to anyone do not have to be reported as income in the United States by the person who gets them.  But anybody who gives more than $10,000 to someone else in one year, has to pay a "gift tax" on it.  This is the penalty for trying to avoid inheritance taxes, which, if people just give "gifts" to their heirs, would happen.

I remember Elan Vital advised me to tell people that they could give $10,000 to each member of Rawat's family in one year and avoid the gift tax.  So, they could probably give like $60,000 to Rawat and not pay gift taxes on it, in any one year.  But most premies didn't have that kind of money, or even $10,000 to donate , and just gave their monthly contributions to both Elan Vital, and directly to Rawat, taking tax deductions for the EV donations, but not for the Rawat "donations."  They also donated cash in the darshan lines, which often raised Rawat hundreds of thousands of dollars in a few hours, at each program in which the foot-kissin ritual occurred.  That isn't taxed either, nor was it disclosed to the premies, or anyone else.  I only know about it because I knew people who actually counted the money, and because some of the finance people for Rawat have become ex-premies.

So, if you have a few thousand people who give monthly contributions to Mr. Rawat as "gifts"  -- even relatively small ones, you can see that would add up pretty fast to have Rawat sitting pretty in residences, planes and yachts.

The other way he got money was through cult businesses, particularly the book buying business (Amtext), which I understand Rawat now personally owns, or so I am told.  Before, he was described as the "beneficial owner," meaning he just got all the profits.  Apparently, Rawat told the Amtext premie crowd that due to them, he was able to finance his obscene, Saddam-like" mansion in Malibu.

The one that was on that spot before, and the additional land, was just direcly bought by Divine Light Mission, according to Bob Mishler, and handed over to Rawat.  Then he tore down that mansion and built a much better one, apprently this time, technically off the books of DLM (not Elan Vital).

Unfortunately, much of that might well be technically "legal."