Whistleblower allegations against LDS Church

[Hotdog]

It is interesting to see that the church sets aside about 14% of all tithing donations. The church statement said, "Over many years, a portion is methodically safeguarded through wise financial management and the building of a prudent reserve for the future." This makes it sound like the 14% was specifically targeted rather than just what is left over after expenditures.

The claim of $100 billion seems to be based on only the Ensign fund and there are clearly other holdings/investments as well. For example, this doesn't include any of the fast offering funds, church property holdings, BYU endowment, or for profit church investments. I would not be surprised to know that the church has over $200 Billion in assets (although many of these produce costs not profit, such as church buildings).

This is interesting to me... I'm not sure what is legal/illegal or moral here. I think the church is certainly prudent with the funds they are trusted with, but not sure if building an asset base is immoral here or if the funds need to be disbursed to maintain non-profit status. Certainly an interesting one to keep an eye on.

It depends on what purpose you believe that a church's funds should be used for, on an individual level (I cannot speak as to a legal one). It has astounded me that the church will brag that they have paid $2.2 billion on charity in the past 25 years, but this is only a very, very small percentage of the amount of wealth that the church has accumulated. If you are fine with giving 10%+ of your hard-earned money to a church that then hoards the money to make even more money, then you are getting what you want. If you would prefer that the money you give is used in a large degree for church expenses and charity, then you are being ripped off. It doesn't strike me as following the teachings of Christ, but little about Christian church organization seems to these days.

If that's what happened. But that's a very big If. The article provided little to no evidence.

Fwiw it was your last paragraph that I was mainly referring to, where your "if" qualifier wasn't as obvious.

Fwiw I suspect the church does have a very large rainy day fund, or whatever you want to call it. Maybe not as large as this guy claims, but large enough that many people will find it objectionable. But I don't find it objectionable. And I suspect that the claim of tax violations by using donations to prop up City Creek are bogus, and that none of the people who jumped on the church about that in response to the WaPo story will apologize. But we'll see.

The Chruch is very generous and helps out a lot of families and people. They helped my family many times over the years and we never paid any tithing.

This is a lot of complaining about an organization doing a lot of good in the world. People aren't forced to pay tithing. They volunteer to.

 

[colton]

The Chruch is very generous and helps out a lot of families and people. They helped my family many times over the years and we never paid any tithing.

This is a lot of complaining about an organization doing a lot of good in the world. People aren't forced to pay tithing. They volunteer to.

Thanks for the post. Despite our vast disagreements in the Trump thread, I'm glad we have some common ground here.

 

[Political Jazz Fan]

Another great opinion piece on this topic:

https://www.deseret.com/opinion/201...rch-of-jesus-christ-rich-or-enriching-lds-tax

 

[MVP]

If the Church lost tax exempt status it would be very significant, .

Churches are tax exempt? Wow.

 

[Brsn]

I'm never one to bash on the Mormon church. They do a lot of good. But having at or around $100 billion dollars is insane. I get their reasons for having a nice rainy day fund, but maybe you should use more of that cash in charity endeavors now instead of stockpiling it for "the end of days". If and when that happens, then economy will probably be in bad shape and that money will probably have much less of a value.

 

[Archie Moses]

1) This isn't anything new. 2) The whistle blower has nothing to lose and millions to gain, or no?

My question is @Zombie as a non-believer, ex member, returned missionary why are you so "irked" by this? Do you not realize that people in the church think a) tithing is a blessing and b) said money goes towards the building of their belief?

No one cares about you not believing it. Churches are exempt. Who cares? Who cares if we don't believe in it, other people do. So, I guess, let it irk you that people believe in supporting said organization.

To me, you sound like the literal definition of a bigot. Lol

I paid tithing when I was a member, I don't feel deceived and did it because I believed and I know others believed too.

What I or you believe doesn't get to dictate religions though.


Religion and taxes!

 

[Archie Moses]

I'm never one to bash on the Mormon church. They do a lot of good. But having at or around $100 billion dollars is insane. I get their reasons for having a nice rainy day fund, but maybe you should use more of that cash in charity endeavors now instead of stockpiling it for "the end of days". If and when that happens, then economy will probably be in bad shape and that money will probably have much less of a value.

Insane to you. Smart to them.

 

[Zombie]

1) This isn't anything new. 2) The whistle blower has nothing to lose and millions to gain, or no?

My question is @Zombie as a non-believer, ex member, returned missionary why are you so "irked" by this? Do you not realize that people in the church think a) tithing is a blessing and b) said money goes towards the building of their belief?

No one cares about you not believing it. Churches are exempt. Who cares? Who cares if we don't believe in it, other people do. So, I guess, let it irk you that people believe in supporting said organization.

To me, you sound like the literal definition of a bigot. Lol

I paid tithing when I was a member, I don't feel deceived and did it because I believed and I know others believed too.

What I or you believe doesn't get to dictate religions though.


Religion and taxes!

My understanding is that the guy blew the whistle under penalty of perjury, so he has his freedom at stake.

You seem to misunderstand my issues with this, I don't have any problem at all with people who believe in the Mormon church, or any church. I do have a problem with organizations that are made exempt from paying taxes because they are supposedly using that money for the public good, while instead hoarding that wealth, or using it for for profit endeavors.

This is a complaint that is not unique to the Mormon church of course, the evangelical mega churches and prosperity preachers are far worse imo.

 

[checkbookdoc]

Some thoughts I have had about the size of the Church savings fund.
1) The whistleblower says the Church currently uses about $6 billion a year in operations (building construction & maintenance, needs of individuals in local areas (rent, food, medical aid, etc.), humanitarian/foreign aid, publications & materials, local budgets, education, etc.). This is paid for by the donations received which are currently around $7 billion a year. It seems logical that when the economy is good donations will increase, and operation costs (fast offering needs, aid, etc.) go down. Therefore, it is not hard to imagine a situation where donations are less than operating expenses.
2) The Church's emergency fund is most likely to be needed in the event of a significant market decline. Given that the fund is invested in the market, it is reasonable to assume that it would also be impacted by the decline. As such, the value of the fund would be significantly less when used than prior to the down swing. As a reference, the DJIA dropped 54% from October 9, 2007 to March 6, 2009.
3) There have been proposals to change the tax status of churches. It is not likely to happen in the next few years, but it is a real risk that could happen in the next 10-15 years. If churches were taxed on donations, then the current donation level would not be sufficient to meet the operating needs of the Church. As such, the earnings in the savings fund would allow the Church to continue current levels of operations.
4) There have also been proposals to remove any tax advantage to making charitable contributions. The reality is, at least in the US, the vast majority of people do not get a tax benefit from charitable contributions (because they are better off taking the standard deduction instead of itemizing). However, the highest value donors would not be able to donate as much should this tax change.

Anyways, my point is that this size of savings seems in line with their stated goals and teachings when I consider some economic scenarios, and the sensitivity of the Church to financial self reliance.

 

[framer]

Just to compare, the state of Utah maintains a Rainy Day fund. In 2018, it put $65 million of its state budget surplus into the RD fund, creating a total balance of $438 million dollars. In all my years of following the legislature, I've never seen it exceed about $550 million...

https://budget.utah.gov/2018/10/17/budgetsurplus/

In the last legislative session, the total budget was at $19 billion dollars, with the two biggest expenditures being K-12 education at $5.5 billion and $4.6 billion towards health care.
https://www.ksl.com/article/46478642/breaking-down-the-state-budget-where-is-utahs-money-going

So it's pretty difficult to contemplate why a church based in Utah needing a rainy day fund 228 times larger than that of the entire state of Utah. interesting.

It's not a "rainy day fund," it's an endowment. the point is to have a principle value amount so high, you can run operations off of the interest accrued. It is common with non profits that have the resources and discipline to create one. It's also not a secret. Here's a list of the top 100 endowments in the world:

https://www.swfinstitute.org/fund-rankings/endowment

If you want to fight this as a system, good luck, as you will need to fight many of the groups and institutions on that list. This is the law and institutions are smart to take advantage of it. It is also better for the economy that storing it in gold hidden is secret rooms under the temple as the money is used to help other businesses and investment.

If you want to go after the LDS church individually, you will need to prove misappropriation of funds, which the "whistleblower" does little other than say "a couple of companies" benefited. Everything else we "learned" was already available with a google search.

 

[checkbookdoc]

This person, and a tax law expert he cites, don't think there are any legal issues to be seen here.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/peterj...ll-does-not-merit-irs-attention/#612a0be5d5bf

 

[Archie Moses]

You seem to misunderstand my issues with this, I don't have any problem at all with people who believe in the Mormon church, or any church. I do have a problem with organizations that are made exempt from paying taxes because they are supposedly using that money for the public good, while instead hoarding that wealth, or using it for for profit endeavors.

They might be saving most of it, but it's just not true saying they don't use their money for public good.

It's easy to **** on the Mormon church, I get it. I just don't see why this irks people so much. Who cares? Why let it bother you?

Don't know, man. I'm a weirdo.

 

[AlaskanAssassin]

So millions of people over the course of many years have made donations to a church, voluntarily. Prudent leaders have managed to save sufficient funds and now they have a large reserve, to be spent in the future on continued church operation and charitable contributions. I don't see any problem here.

There are appox. 17 million members of the faith. If I'm doing the math correctly, that amounts to a little over $5K per member of the church. That doesn't seem excessive to me.

I would have a problem if funds were spent inappropriately or if someone was getting paid a giant (CEO like) salary.

My only concerns after reading the article are about some funds being used to "prop up church businesses". I wish there was more information on that, and maybe we'll learn more about it in the future.

 

[Archie Moses]

Some thoughts I have had about the size of the Church savings fund.
1) The whistleblower says the Church currently uses about $6 billion a year in operations (building construction & maintenance, needs of individuals in local areas (rent, food, medical aid, etc.), humanitarian/foreign aid, publications & materials, local budgets, education, etc.). This is paid for by the donations received which are currently around $7 billion a year. It seems logical that when the economy is good donations will increase, and operation costs (fast offering needs, aid, etc.) go down. Therefore, it is not hard to imagine a situation where donations are less than operating expenses.
2) The Church's emergency fund is most likely to be needed in the event of a significant market decline. Given that the fund is invested in the market, it is reasonable to assume that it would also be impacted by the decline. As such, the value of the fund would be significantly less when used than prior to the down swing. As a reference, the DJIA dropped 54% from October 9, 2007 to March 6, 2009.
3) There have been proposals to change the tax status of churches. It is not likely to happen in the next few years, but it is a real risk that could happen in the next 10-15 years. If churches were taxed on donations, then the current donation level would not be sufficient to meet the operating needs of the Church. As such, the earnings in the savings fund would allow the Church to continue current levels of operations.
4) There have also been proposals to remove any tax advantage to making charitable contributions. The reality is, at least in the US, the vast majority of people do not get a tax benefit from charitable contributions (because they are better off taking the standard deduction instead of itemizing). However, the highest value donors would not be able to donate as much should this tax change.

Anyways, my point is that this size of savings seems in line with their stated goals and teachings when I consider some economic scenarios, and the sensitivity of the Church to financial self reliance.

My neighbor who's borderline LDS (he pleases his wife) lost his job. I think he was laid off. The church has since helped him pay his bills and mortgage.

To know this irks people makes me feel like I'm missing something. Maybe I am.

 

[The Thriller]

It's not a "rainy day fund," it's an endowment. the point is to have a principle value amount so high, you can run operations off of the interest accrued. It is common with non profits that have the resources and discipline to create one. It's also not a secret. Here's a list of the top 100 endowments in the world:

https://www.swfinstitute.org/fund-rankings/endowment

If you want to fight this as a system, good luck, as you will need to fight many of the groups and institutions on that list. This is the law and institutions are smart to take advantage of it. It is also better for the economy that storing it in gold hidden is secret rooms under the temple as the money is used to help other businesses and investment.

If you want to go after the LDS church individually, you will need to prove misappropriation of funds, which the "whistleblower" does little other than say "a couple of companies" benefited. Everything else we "learned" was already available with a google search.

lol

this seems like an overly aggressive and overly defensive response to my post. You okay there bud?

 

[Zombie]

Nobody is saying the Church doesn't do good things, y'all building a hell of a lot of strawmen in here.

 

[MVP]

Whatever church does with it's money should be up to the church - like with any other organization. I just think they should be taxed like everybody else.

 

[Engorged On Unborn Gore]

What passes for a 501(c) nonprofit in this country is ridiculous.

Are you going to amass wealth? Then just do that. Stop associating your wealth gathering enterprise with Jesus ****ing Christ, Who fed and healed the poorest of the poor in Scripture.

homeless people cannot go to the Mormon church for anything. They are always referred to local secular homeless services. Even their own members that fall in the homelessness.

Why is Jesus a tax shield?

 

[Engorged On Unborn Gore]

Tell me this: is the book of Mormon a “covenant”? If so, then who exactly is covenanted to it? Because it talks about homeless people in there.

I think the LDS church was correct to move them selves away from the nickname “Mormon”. They’re not really into that book, or what it prescribes.

They should just call themselves the “church of multilevel marketing”, and pay the appropriate taxes.

 

[Archie Moses]

Nobody is saying the Church doesn't do good things, y'all building a hell of a lot of strawmen in here.

You literally said they don't help the public or something like that.