A Nice Little Earner

Hovind keeps his financial records quite secret, which is his right. However, snippets of information have leaked into the public domain. From these we can draw some projections of how much profit Creation Science Evangelism (and possibly Hovind himself) generated in 2002.

PRODUCT	REVENUE *	QUANTITY [1]	REVENUE
Video Tapes/DVD	@ $10 each	96,755	967,550
Books	@ $5 each	44,276	221,380
Audio Tapes	@ $5 each	9,850	49,250
Speaking Fee ("Love Offerings")	@$5 per head - Hovind demands an audience of at least 400 [6]	45 times per year (est)	90,000
Dinosaur Adventure Land	@ $5 per head	9,680	48,400
Donations	n/a	Unknown	?
.	.	TOTAL REVENUE **	$1,376,000

ITEM	EXPENSE		EXPENSE
Wages	@$21,000 per employee [3]	Hovind has claimed he has up to 30 employees - including members of his family [5]	630,000
Utilities etc	@$1,000 per week		52,000
Web Site	@160kb/s	Based upon commercial hosting rates.	10,000
Travel Expenses	ZERO	Hovind expects the local organizer to pay all his expenses, including travel. [6]	0
.	.	TOTAL EXPENSES	$692,000

You will notice there are no mention of income taxes. This is because Hovind has structured his finances in such a way that he does not have to pay income tax. Hovind's dislike for income tax dates back to at least 1996 when the IRS caught him for unpaid taxes. This resulted in Hovind's infamous attempt to falsely declare bankruptcy.

Many years later Hovind is a lot wiser. In 1999 he put Creation Science Evangelism under the tax free umbrella of Faith Baptist Fellowship [4]. Hovind also calls the money he receives for speaking at each venue "love offerings" instead of a speaking fee [6]. These "love offerings" are not paid directly to Hovind, instead are channeled back through Faith Baptist Fellowship.

Based upon the projections shown above Hovind has set up a nice little earner. Even sweeter is that he pays no taxes on his commercial activities like Dinosaur Adventure Land. What is even more astounding is outright donations have not been included in these calculations. This type of revenue must be substantial because Hovind had set up his web site to collect these donations. How much is raised in this way can only be guessed at.

To give some idea of how much spare cash Hovind has, the reported cost for his self funded project, Dinosaur Adventure Land, was $1.5 million. [7]

I have no objection to anyone earning a substantial income either in commerce or religion but clearing $680,000 per year, tax free, for peddling bad science does brush against the grain.

Finally, we are left wondering if Hovind will now be able to personally pay the prize money of his $250,000 Challenge instead of relying upon anonymous rich friends?

[5] Hovind, K The Every-Once-in-A-While Newsletter to Keep you Informed about the Ministry of Creation Science Evangelism (CSE) and Dinosaur Adventure Land (DAL) - Spring, 2002

[6] Jewell, M [Hovind's daughter and scheduling secretary] (2003) Email of scheduling information.

Revenue	1,376,000
less Expenses	692,000
NET PROFIT	$684,000