Whistleblower allegations against LDS Church

[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.

 

[Deleted member 365]

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.