Mr. McGibblets
Well-Known Member
No way. Most of the church's assets are income producing and I will get to that in a second. But even church buildings and temples are income producing in an indirect way. When temples are built in an area, then tithing funds increase dramatically among the members of that area because there is a greater push for current temple recommends and temple worthiness. There is a great incentive, (both social and you could argue spiritual), for members to pay tithing when there is a temple in their area. Plus, a lot of the funds for temples come from members of that area to begin with. And the cleaning and maintenance at churches is done by volunteers. Even some of the engineers at the smaller temples are volunteers.
Now, as for the church's assets, they own hundreds of corporations and many of them are privately held companies and produce income. I know of at least 5 different Real Estate Investment companies that the church has that handles the church-owned real estate around the world. Many of these are stealth companies that people would not realize are actually owned by the LDS church. These properties are not empty lots. The church develops them and then leases out commercial office space, etc. The church also retains mineral rights on any piece of property that passes through the church's hands. Meaning, even though they might sell some land, they retain mineral rights which also has led to some lucrative income throughout the world.
In addition to real estate and just temples/churches, there are also private corporations that the church owns a large percentage of due to rich members donating shares in lieu of cash for their tithing. For example, one of the Bain partners who donated nearly $2MM of Burger King shares to the church in 2008 alone. Who knows how much they own in other publicly traded companies which brings dividends and other capital gains if later sold.
To argue that most of the assets are income consuming is not very accurate if you look at the totality of the church's investments (which nobody can really do because of the secrecy of it all). However, even just according to facts available semi-publicly, it's clear the church has made some major money due to donations just given to them over time.
