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Mormon whistleblower says his church is a “clandestine hedge fund”

303 points by nabla9 3y ago

BigCryo 3y ago
Yes, same as all the elite universities
WeylandYutani 3y ago
The golden calf.
once_inc 3y ago
My main issue isn't the fact that the church is hoarding money and keeping, it is with the fact that the US government makes exemptions for them. What is the reasoning behind the tax-exemption and the exemption to reveal all financial information? Level the playing field and let the church be about its own business.
- soco 3y ago
  You'd be surprised how many countries have tax exemptions for churches of about any denomination. There's still a tradition apparently that the business of god(s) shouldn't be investigated by man, or something.
  - qznc 3y ago
    If it were only tax exemptions. Germany pays half a billion every year to the church because of a deal from a hundred years ago. That is in addition to anything with taxes. https://www.ncronline.org/news/germany-continues-payments-churches-century-after-deciding-stop https://www.ncronline.org/news/germany-continues-payments-ch...
    - mcv 3y ago
      Is that different from a church tax? Many countries levy taxes on behalf of officially recognised churches. If you're registered as a church member, you pay an additional tax that goes to your church. You can generally opt out by deregistering as a member. I think Netherland used to have this in the past, but got rid of it at some point. Some European countries still have it. I assume there's still some standards for how those churches can use that money though; churches are not meant to be for-profit ventures. Though some of them (older ones especially) are quite rich. Younger churches tend to be poor.
      - qznc 3y ago
        It is not related to the church tax. It comes on top.
      - usrusr 3y ago
        As qznc started, those are separate things. One is a crazy leftover from Napoleonic days (consider the amount of changes to German statehood that thing has survived!), the other is an opt-out thing (or rather an opt-in actually, unless your parents did the "in" for you) that I actually think is super nice to have. It should be extended to the point where it's basically an API for income-scaled membership fees that's open to every org that wants to have it (and to public broadcasting, to achieve "separate from state" in a way that isn't a flat household tax)
      - josefx 3y ago
        As far as I understand the payments Germany still makes are for the properties it "bought" from the churches when the separation between church and state was declared. There have been plans to repay the remaining sum in one big payment, but those have been around for probably just as long as the agreement itself. The "church tax" is collected independently from that and it is a "paid" service the state offers to any public organization that falls into the same broad legal definition used for churches. As far as I understand the state actually makes a profit from the cut it keeps.
  - BrandoElFollito 3y ago
    We do not have specific tax exemption for churches in France, they are part of the non profit organizations. When you give money to such an organization you can claim tax credit on your general taxes. And since this is France, we of course have upped the game with a special region: Alsace Moselle. Or is on the border with Germany and has been French or German in the last centuries as wars came and went. Church there has a special status (taxes, payment of priests, religion at school, concordate with the Vatican, ...) that is historical and nobody ever got rid of it. There are also other specificities because of that, notably social security.
  - wanttocomment 3y ago
    [flagged]
- nroets 3y ago
  Churches were social security centuries ago: You contribute a tenth of your income and in exchange the church will look after you if you when disaster strikes (illness, crop failure) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tithe_barns_in_Europe https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tithe_barns_in_Europe
  - NoZebra120vClip 3y ago
    Indeed, the disestablishmentarian State has usurped many functions that used to pertain to the Church. It was the Catholic Church who founded the university system as we know it today, and the hospital system we depend on. When colonists made it to the New World, who was there to educate the children? The Catholic missionaries and religious institutes founded schools and created whole districts to educate children (yes, even Native and Indigenous children such as we vilify them for in Canada.) Parents would often have at least one child set aside to dedicate to the Church, as a priest and/or a professed religious. Children would enter the seminary, monastery, or convent. In return, those insitutions would care for the underprivileged and the powerless. Many monasteries provided services to the Church and to the general public: brewing beer, cultivating gardens, baking bread, you name it. But as all these services and more are privatized and nationalized, it sort of makes the Church redundant, an NGO without purpose, if you're on the outside looking in. So why perpetuate non-profit status of these mere charities when the State can provide entitlements far beyond what meager donations can provide? It's definitely a Sophie's choice, when you get right down to it.
    - reaperman 3y ago
      Catholic Universities are still thriving. The Catholic Churches globally hoard around $100 billion and could absolutely create a world-class endowment for a huge university if they prioritized that. It’s not the states’ fault they choose not to.
      - mschuster91 3y ago
        More like 30 billion dollars, and a large swath of that is tied up in completely illiquid assets like churches or gold in reliquia [1]. [1] https://sites.lsa.umich.edu/mje/2022/05/24/the-finances-behind-vatican-city/ https://sites.lsa.umich.edu/mje/2022/05/24/the-finances-behi...
- mcv 3y ago
  Tax exemption should be a non-issue. Churches shouldn't be for-profit businesses, they should be associations with members contributing to a common, partly charitable goal (although honestly it's also just a club). That's what they conceptually are, and that's how they should work. They should be treated as charitable organisations at best, and then also held to those standards. Any church run as a business should not be considered a church at all. (Disclaimer: I'm a member of a Dutch church, and I have no idea what our tax situation is.)
  - reaperman 3y ago
    Due to separation of church and state, churches aren’t supposed to participate in political speech either but the largest ones pretty unanimously do every major election. Legally that’s supposed to trigger taxation but it’s political suicide for anyone to go after them for this.
    - fauxpause_ 3y ago
      Is that an accurate statement? I have never heard that included in the definition of separation of church and state. Sounds wrong.
      - deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
      - jrumbut 3y ago
        It's kind of true? It's stated a little awkwardly but there is truth there. If you are funding a political campaign (not just any political speech, but an actual campaign) you have to be set up as a political campaign rather than a church. > 1954, Congress approved an amendment by Sen. Lyndon Johnson to prohibit 501(c)(3) organizations, which includes charities and churches, from engaging in any political campaign activity. To the extent Congress has revisited the ban over the years, it has in fact strengthened the ban. The most recent change came in 1987 when Congress amended the language to clarify that the prohibition also applies to statements opposing candidates https://www.irs.gov/newsroom/charities-churches-and-politics#:~:text=In%201954%2C%20Congress%20approved%20an,in%20any%20political%20campaign%20activity https://www.irs.gov/newsroom/charities-churches-and-politics.... In practice, churches are given quite a bit of leeway to engage in what any reasonable person would call political campaigning.
- technion 3y ago
  Happens with software vendors too. A lot of groups really feel like a business but get office 365 for free and azure credits because of their status.
- runsWphotons 3y ago
  https://www.mtsu.edu/first-amendment/article/972/taxation-of-religious-entities#:~:text=The%20Supreme%20Court%2C%20in%20an,not%20violate%20the%20establishment%20clause https://www.mtsu.edu/first-amendment/article/972/taxation-of....
- santiagobasulto 3y ago
  Nobody is answering your question. Churches (cults, religion) all over the world are tax-exempted as a way to avoid "persecution". If a cult is taxed, then a particular government could persecute a particular cult by just raising their taxes. Imagine a government that is very strong on religion A, decides to raise taxes on religion B. I'm not saying this is right or wrong. It even sounds a bit dated to me. But that's the underlying reason.
  - sva_ 3y ago
    I'm not sure I follow, how would it be possible to raise taxes on a specific religion? By targeting their assets?!
    - clarionbell 3y ago
      It is extremely simple once you get out of the western secular, tolerant mindset. Just a matter of tailoring the law in the right way. For example, if you want to hurt church X which has a large following among urban population, just increase taxes on noncommercial private buildings with seating capacity over 50 in areas where population density is over some number. And make allowance for exceptions, so you can claim the law doesn't discriminate, and it's their fault that they didn't get exception. The fact that exception is impossible to get if people asking for it adhere to some creed is secondary. Even if they get it, the process can be made costly and painful to the point where they run out of money before. Or you can go explicit in your intentions, and make a law targeting that particular faith by name. It has been done in the past, it is happening now. Look at middle-east for examples. And you can go for categories too. Say you don't want any foreign religions popping up. Just raise taxes on all, and give exceptions or such to faiths that have over some number of citizen adherents. The possibilities are practically limitless once you accept that law is a tool.
      - coliveira 3y ago
        For better or worse, the tax system is here for everyone. Why should religions be the only institutions immune to it? Everything you said happens in America, just change religion for nationality (sanctions) or race. I don't see why religion should be different. Moreover, religions persecution also happens in the USA, but by other means. Catholics have been persecuted in the past, the same happened against jews during a period, and more recently to islam. The idea of tax exemption only happens to benefit the well entrenched religions: evangelical churches, mormonism in Utah, the Catholic church. It also helps up and coming scams such as scientologists, who take advantage of the provisions of the law.
- herculity275 3y ago
  My understanding is that a lot of the current status quo came to be as a result of the Church of Scientology's long standing dispute with the IRS. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tax_status_of_Scientology_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tax_status_of_Scientology_in_t...
- devonkim 3y ago
  The founders of the US didn’t want it to become like England. England gave special tax breaks for churches and churches became very, very influential parts of the State due to tax policy alone. As such, the idea was that if churches are tax exempt they would stay out of politics mostly given they don’t pay taxes in the first place. As it stands any persistent form of power (corporate, religious, perhaps even academic) that seeks to further entrench itself will seek out forms of power such as a government or large multinational to ingratiate itself to. Separation of state and anything else at all would probably have been the better doctrine to establish and follow, but oh well we’re screwed now
  - coliveira 3y ago
    Founders of the US gave tax exemption to churches because they were part of chuches themselves. It is a system that has been rotten from the core foundation. Separation of church and state is, that is correct, a result of rejection of England, because they didn't want the same English system where one church dominated the others.
- brent_noorda 3y ago
  No organization should be tax-exempt (not religions, not charities, not foundations), and no donations to such organizations should be tax exempt. Tax exemption takes money from the one democratic charity (our government) that supports vastly more than any other, increases undemocratic amounts of influence among the wealthy, and leads to financial shenanigans such as those we see here withe the LDS hoard. I've been in position to witness all of this via my parent's wealth distribution (almost entirely to charities, starting with 50% to LDS church).
  - starkd 3y ago
    The state is not the only means by which a society conducts charity. It needs to encourage charitable giving through various avenues.
    - brent_noorda 3y ago
      Does the state need to encourage charitable giving, though? Would a person stop donating $1000 of their expendable wealth to their favorite cause (e.g., hunger, cancer, cloning hitler, whatever) if that $1000 donation no longer reduced their taxes by $200 (for example)? If so, what kind of person would do that? Probably not the kind of person who ever donates to anything in the first place. Worst case, if there were no more tax-deductible charities: that person would pay the $200 taxes and only donate $800 (instead of $1000) to their favorite cause. Best case: Megawealthy would no longer leave $20 billion to their favorite cause (be that their dog, the LDS church, their love of oil drilling, or whatever), but would pay $5 in estate taxes and only have $15 billion leftover for their love of oil drilling (or whatever be their whim).
- slv77 3y ago
  There are two main tax exemptions which churches benefit from in the US. The first is that donation are tax deductible for taxpayers that itemize their deductions. The second is that any income from investments is also tax free. This is the case for any 503b non-profit organization in the US, not strictly for churches. For example, if you local youth soccer program was a 503b the interest from their bank account isn’t taxed. If a 503B puts its money into Microsoft stock, the profits that Microsoft makes are taxed. The capital gains the 503B gets wouldn’t get taxed when the stock was sold. The main argument in the article, not fully stated, is that the Mormon Church doesn’t do enough beneficial works to qualify as a 503b. In the US, Churches are granted 503b status without specific reviews of their societal benefit. If you want to pay someone to operate a homeless shelter or ding a bell all day to prevent the end of times, it is all the same. This is part of separation of church and state as laid out in the constitution. If there was a specific review the State could “put its thumb” on the scales and favor some churches over others in granting non-profit status. Churches, just like the local soccer club don’t have the same distribution requirements that a donor controlled 503b would have. For example if you are a billionaire and donate $1B of your appreciated stock to your donor directed fund you need to distribute 5% per year on charitable works to keep the 503b status. The article implies that the same requirement should apply to the Mormon Church that applies to a donor directed fund. This line of reasoning is incorrect. A donor directed fund has substantially no other affiliated activity that has to be considered. This is more like Harvard’s endowment where there is a school controls the fund. In the case of Harvard, if the fund didn’t distribute anything in a year there still would be substantial educational work and research going on. In the case of a donor directed non-profit nothing would be happening. The Mormon Church argues that it operates more like Harvard and that the whistleblower did not have access to the larger organizations finances. All global churches right now are facing a demographic cliff as wealthy nations are increasingly secular while most religions growth is in developing countries. In most cases Churches transfer a large amount of donations from wealthy countries like the US to less wealthy ones like Nigeria. In another 50 years many of those transfers will cease to be significant unless there is a religious revival in wealthier markets or a significant deviation in the number of children religious families have relative to the overall population in these countries. It is likely that many churches will need to wind down financial activities to be more aligned with the demographics.
- willdough 3y ago
  [dead]
akudha 3y ago
Unlike other nonprofits, religious organizations don't have to fully disclose all financial information to the IRS lol. What is the logic behind this? Why makes religious organizations special?
- b112 3y ago
  lol. What is the logic behind this? Why makes religious organizations special? The response to this is literally thousands of pages long. However, even reading recent, modern western/europeans history in depth (last 200 years), will give you more insight here. As for "why is it still this way?", you would quite literally have to rip rights out of nations constitutions, re-assess endless past case history, get people to vote on it, and on and on. There is literally no larger change you could pick, than changing the legal roles of church and state.
  - hutzlibu 3y ago
    "The first clause in the Bill of Rights states that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion.”"
    - b112 3y ago
      Unless you are agreeing with me, I will suspect that you don't get the point of this part of the amendment. It's about hands off. Understand, the church (legally) predates, and is not controlled by the state in western legal case history and laws. The church came first, not state. Again, just describing how we got here.
      - hutzlibu 3y ago
        I am not an american, but I understand it as a clear intended separation of state and church. So also no privileges especially for churches.
        fsckboy 3y ago
fxtentacle 3y ago
"He wants Ensign Peak Advisors to pay the taxes he says it owes on the $100 billion built from tithing. If the IRS decides Nielsen is right, he could be rewarded with up to 30% of what's collected"
- xmcqdpt2 3y ago
  I wouldn't be surprised if he got a few millions from the SEC suit against Ensign Peak already, but he would get very rich indeed if the IRS assessed back taxes on them. That doesn't mean he's wrong! I don't believe there is much debate about the main facts in the SEC suit anyway, so we know the church owns Ensign Peak, that Ensign peak has at least tens of billions in securities and that they distributed those to a bunch of shell companies so that they wouldn't have to report their holdings, primarily so as to avoid public resentment.
testHNac 3y ago
> David Nielsen: I thought we were gonna change the world. And we just grew the bank account. Ahh ... Welcome to the real world. That's what I used to believe long back. Later I realized that most so called NGOs are just for lining up the pockets of the management, and to help them lead a luxurious life paid for by the NGOs 'administrative expenses'. > David Nielsen says since it was created in 1997, the reserve fund has swelled beyond $100 billion …twice the size of Harvard's endowment or the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. David Nielsen: You could solve big problems with $100 billion. I get his point. But there is a counter argument too. I have seen some business houses establish Trusts that own shares of various companies. The annual income of these trusts from interest, dividends and profits etc goes into various social activities. This ensures that the organization will last for decades instead of spending all the money in one go. That allows them to take up long term projects was my understanding. ---- The real issue is that the Church claims that they are investing money in humanitarian activities and the whistleblower says that they are not. But I think that the whistleblower might not have access to those accounts as those belong to the Church, he was with the investment arm. ---- IRS might be looking to expand it's Tax base. Taxing Religious organizations can be a good rallying cry for Democratic voter base. After the rich and wealthy, go after the religions to raise more Taxes.
- nabla9 3y ago
  They broke the law and then knew it. Mormonism is a money and political power squiring cult. 10% tithe payments is control.
- ricardobeat 3y ago
  > I think that the whistleblower might not have access to those accounts as those belong to the Church, he was with the investment arm. He does clarify that in the interview: the money coming into the fund has never been used for any of that. It’s 150B stashed vs 1B/year that’s actually being spent on “humanitarian activities”.
  - testHNac 3y ago
    Exactly. But my point is that he won't have access to that data. As that would be the Church's expense accounts. The whistleblower was in the investment arm. The whole issue boils down to these two statements : >Christopher Waddell: No, because then everyone would be telling us what they wanted us to do with the money. > Last year the church says it spent over a billion dollars on humanitarian aid, including food production. > Christopher Waddell: In any given month you may have an average of nine transfers going from Ensign Peak back to the church to fund all church operations. All humanitarian work-- education work, all the work of the church they fund. > David Nielsen: Money's going in and out of the cash accounts all the time. But Ensign Peak's funds were never used for any charitable purpose, as to my knowledge the whole time I was there. So there's a bit of a distinction here that's important. I just find it funny ( from what I understood of the article ) that they don't have to give any audit the accounts and submit to IRS. Let them not get taxed as a religious organization. But at least the money trail is something the IRS and Government should be made aware of.
sylware 3y ago
Oh? What scale? Same scale than the worldwide economy health defining blackrock and vanguard?
gjvc 3y ago
Many universities are hedge funds or property developers with an interest in education at this point.
davidgerard 3y ago
the SEC has started looking into Ensign Peak Advisors and busted them at least once https://www.christianpost.com/news/mormon-church-fined-5m-for-obscuring-billions-in-investmestments.html https://www.christianpost.com/news/mormon-church-fined-5m-fo... fine was only $5m, but it's on record that they're violators
MrBuddyCasino 3y ago
It was just a matter of time until the political establishment set their sights on an ideological enemy. I doubt this will be successful, but we can expect more of this.
tomas789 3y ago
Amatures. They need to start their own country and then anything is legal. A business model that is proven by milenia.
- pjc50 3y ago
  The Mormons kind of tried that and lost https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1838_Mormon_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1838_Mormon_War
  - lostlogin 3y ago
    The Catholic Church got into this and their banking history is fascinating. Eg https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roberto_Calvi https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roberto_Calvi
    - pjc50 3y ago
      Oh, the Catholic Church _is_ a country, in the form of the Vatican. (It retains a highly circuitous and squiggly-line but unbroken link to the Roman Empire!)
- ramraj07 3y ago
  That's what they try to do in Expanse anyway. Build a generational ship to try and jet out to their own system light years away.
- TallGuyShort 3y ago
  Yeah the irony here is getting regulated by a government that demands more, still goes into awe inspiring amounts of debt, still manages to flirt with defaulting on it, and whose leaders get even wealthier.
thom 3y ago
The same's true of even fairly innocent looking denominations in UK churches. If you're a large land/property owner (that doesn't have to pay business rates), with thousands of people willing to give you donations each week (on which you don't necessarily pay any tax) then it's hard to lose money even with dwindling congregations. The Church of England has something like £10bn of assets, but even small denominations own hundreds of both commercial and residential properties. A lot of the more liquid assets were invested in absolutely stuff like oil or tobacco companies, but most have at least attempted to move towards more ethical investments. Source: child of the manse.
Borrible 3y ago
I have always admired the modesty of Mammon temples, though.
jmacd 3y ago
https://thestrong.substack.com/p/can-facebook-keep-up-missing-the https://thestrong.substack.com/p/can-facebook-keep-up-missin... "In recent years, there has been a notable shift in online activity from the Social Graph, where users connect and interact with their friends and family, to the Content Graph, which emphasizes the discovery and consumption of the latest and most engaging content. This transition has changed how people use social media, with many users prioritizing content consumption over social interactions. The focus is now on viral videos, memes, and trending news from unknown sources. No longer do we spend our days reading the personal updates and activities of friends and acquaintances."
- pjc50 3y ago
  (comment on wrong thread?)
  - jmacd 3y ago
    apologies, yes. Wrong thread. +dang can you delete?
woolcap 3y ago
[flagged]
- rdxm 3y ago
  tax law is tax law, it's that simple. if the hedge fund did what the whistleblower alleges, then bye-bye tax exempt status. also since when is a rainy day / reserve fund unique to a particular religion? it's been common sense financial practice for longer than your particular religion has been in existence.
  - Game_Ender 3y ago
    Mormons have a “history of calamity” so to speak where they found themselves having to move or hit by various disasters. This is very recently in religious terms, last 200 years or so. So this is reflected in much more focus on having a financial cushion as well as other disaster preparedness things like a few months of food saved up at home. Think of it as the religious version of your great grandmother who lived through that depression always saving odd things and being extra thrifty. Some scars run very deep and have long term behavioral changes.
    - tomrod 3y ago
      That's a hagiographic way of viewing Mormon (specifically, Brighamite) history, given they brought the vast majority of their calamities upon themselves (especially in the early days). Be it from a womanizing, ephebophilic founder who speculated with the financial fortunes of early members in Ohio, to disregarding pluralism on the frontier in their establishment of hegemony, to declaring himself a God after being a priest and a king with the second anointing, to the establishment of a theocracy in Utah and partial theocracy in Illinois, to the usurping of civil law for ecclesiastical law up into the 1900s, to the exercise of polygamy, to the persecution and targeting of established religions, to ongoing racist and sexist cultural philosophies and doctrines, to the hoarding of wealth, to paying tens of thousands of dollars for rugs, to the economic favoring of corporate leaders (e.g multiple homes for their leaders) and family (ever wonder who puts in the curtain dividers) there have been many, shall we say, missteps. Fortunately for Mormons who remain in the Brighamite branch, there are several counterfactual examples of where their religion can go, not the least of which is the branch housed in the Community of Christ, which has followed a much more ecumenical path and openly confronted the history that was hidden for a long time.
pavlov 3y ago
Religions tend to become the opposite of what they preach. The church of Jesus became an actual state for centuries. Buddhist monasteries founded on non-violence became fortresses populated by warrior monks. Hindu religion perpetuated the caste system. And so on. No major world religion is exempt. The LDS church is a curious speedrun of religion’s possibilities. Should we be esoteric? A state? A hedge fund? A polygamous matchmaker? A business networking opportunity? They seem to have tried everything in less than two centuries.
- ristlane 3y ago
  I can’t speak to other religions, but Jesus did not speak against the state, or against statehood as such. Meanwhile the Catholic Church is the largest charitable organization in the world, despite all of its problems due to consisting of deeply flawed humans.
  - voytec 3y ago
    Catholic Church is also the largest organization in the world which openly protects pedophiles.
    - number6 3y ago
      I bet it is also a hedge fund
      - hutzlibu 3y ago
        Well, they have the official "Institute for the Works of Religion" https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Institute_for_the_Works_of_Religion https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Institute_for_the_Works_of_R... A proper bank, with historic ties to the Mafia.
    - ristlane 3y ago
      It was a disaster for the church and for humanity. Ireland used to be the most Catholic nation in the world; not anymore. Their faith was obliterated by the sex abuse scandal.
gadders 3y ago
So is Harvard: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harvard_University_endowment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harvard_University_endowment
- idrathernot 3y ago
  And almost every other entity with more than $1B in assets.
jasmer 3y ago
It’s their choice if they want to save their money. There’s no whistle to blow.
- todd_t 3y ago
  If there's no whistle to blow, why did the SEC issue a 5 million dollar fine?
  - jasmer 3y ago
    My bad choice of words, I meant to say that saving money is not wrong or immoral and that a lot of the arguments here are based on that as opposed to the materiality of having done something wrong by the SEC.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
rayiner 3y ago
Sounds a lot like Harvard, Yale, etc.
thenerdhead 3y ago
Mormons are like freemasons. They are both widely known organizations that have their secrets. The more devout you are to the organization, the more you get to know and participate in. The funny thing about this whistleblower is that he has a twin brother named Lars. They both filed this letter about 3 years ago. The fact that it was picked up by mainstream news is actually quite surprising given I lived in Utah majority of my life and none of this stuff made headlines.
NickC25 3y ago
Clandestine? It's been out in the open for years. I was in SLC over a decade ago and there was this big shiny new mall that was completely owned by the Mormon Church. I don't doubt that the Church gives some of its income towards legitimate charitable causes. But how much of that some in comparison to how much it spends on other things (like private businesses, political lobbying, land ownership for non religious purposes, etc.) is the real issue here....and I would guess the distribution skews heavily towards things that aren't exactly charitable or helpful for the poor and downtrodden. The Mormon Church is nothing more than a social club that has a large for-profit investment arm.
- tomrod 3y ago
  They also claim humanitarian donation on hours their members volunteer within congregations, as well as member-driven humanitarian contributions ("fast offerings".) Meanwhile, there is a constant drive to get people off the "dole" even if they are elderly or infirmed. External humanitarian giving up until the first time this was pointed out a few years back was on the order of $40M per year. Not counting the free-will time and internal, grassroot fast offerings given to other members at a congregation level. It's a bit sickening.
  - NickC25 3y ago
    Right - so of that supposed $100 billion, they claim they spent 0.04% of that per year on humanitarian giving. I get 0.06% in interest from my bank each year. Accounts in the billions, let alone tens or hundreds of billions probably get rates higher than 0.06%. Hypothetically, The Church donates part of the interest it earns on its account(s) and claims that money alone is enough because the pure dollar amount seems large to folks like you or I - $40 million dollars is a large amount of money and probably does help a lot of people....just not enough people that they could help but make the deliberate choice not to. A bit sickening? This is a religious organization after all which is supposedly dedicated to improving humanity. It's more than sickening at this state - it's vomit-inducing.
deleted 3y ago
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sproketboy 3y ago
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cs702 3y ago
Paraphrasing Pournelle's Iron Law of Bureaucracy[a]: Initially, the hedge fund was formed and run by people devoted to the goals of the church, such as dedicated missionaries. Over time, the hedge fund has been taken over by managers devoted to the goals of the hedge fund itself. University endowments are hedge funds too -- they have universities instead of churches attached to them. [a] https://www.jerrypournelle.com/reports/jerryp/iron.html https://www.jerrypournelle.com/reports/jerryp/iron.html
vlunkr 3y ago
As a recently disaffected Mormon, let me tell outsiders a few reasons why I think this is a huge issue. I see some saying the church can do what it wants with it’s money, I want to explain why I don’t think it’s ok. - members are encouraged to pay tithing before all other expenses. People are out there deciding whether to pay bills or tithing, while the church sits on this hoard. That’s hard to swallow. - the church preaches against materialism. Any Mormon can tell you about the “great and spacious building.” It’s a story from the Book of Mormon about materialism or worldliness distracting you from finding the love of God. So what does the church do with tithing? They build an expensive shopping mall right next to their sacred temple and headquarters. What? I don’t have a problem with the mall on its own, but the irony is overwhelming. - they own, or at least during the leak they owned, tons of stock in Facebook and other big tech. They’ve earned so much against the dangers of social media, it feels really hypocritical. - they claim to be saving money for the Second Coming. I think this is nonsensical. There are two phases to the Second Coming, calamities/Armageddon, then Jesus comes to fix everything. You don’t need money for those. By all means, hoard emergency supplies, but what are you going to do with your Facebook stock when governments have collapsed? - obviously, hiding behind shell companies. I expect this from businesses, not from the church who asks their members if they are “honest in their dealings with their fellow man” regularly. - there are different ways to interpret the original revelation about tithing in the church. They have chosen the maximal version. In the Doctrine and Covenants, it says “one tenth of their interest annually.” Interest is not the same as income. It’s been alternatively interpreted as 10% of any investments, or 10% after all other expenses are paid. At one point a prophet also said that the law is only for those who have means to pay. The conveniently don’t use that quote anymore. Anyways, this is all very fresh in my mind so these are my rantings.
- TrueGeek 3y ago
  "encouraged to pay tithing before all other expenses" is an understatement
- mrangle 3y ago
  Your complaints are moral and subjective. They don't seem to fall under the category of "huge problem". All Churches endeavor to "hoards". Not one doesn't. For a variety of good reasons. That being said, your moral complaints are valid for you. I hope that you can reconcile them or find a community that better meets you where your values are.
AndyMcConachie 3y ago
>Sharyn Alfonsi: What about, you know, the idea that secrecy builds mistrust? >Christopher Waddell: Well, we don't feel it's being secret. We feel it's being confidential. This line ROFL. Seriously, how can you listen to someone talk like this and not think they are completely deceitful?
stainablesteel 3y ago
good for them tbh, despite their weird sides they do get some peculiar aspects of life right
lcall 3y ago
Here is a historical perspective that explains why the Church's savings make so much sense. Basically, the Church has had financial problems in the past due to spending more (on things like construction) than it received from tithing, and the strenuous efforts needed at those times. It is important to be able to continue the extensive worldwide operations even in a major downturn. The Church contributes to extensive humanitarian aid, education, construction, building maintenance, publishing, etc, and counsels its members to avoid debt and save for a rainy day, and it tries to follow that same advice. https://www.deseret.com/faith/2023/5/14/23649253/cbs-60-minutes-mormon-lds-church-finance-story-what-it-missed https://www.deseret.com/faith/2023/5/14/23649253/cbs-60-minu...
- lcall 3y ago
  FWIW, another with similar perspective: https://www.ksl.com/article/50646052/opinion-whats-behind-american-medias-unhealthy-fixation-on-mormons-inc https://www.ksl.com/article/50646052/opinion-whats-behind-am...
deleted 3y ago
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cameroncf 3y ago
First thing that comes to my mind reading this article is that they are just saving it all up to build the Nauvoo from the show "The Expanse".

303 points by nabla9 3y ago

BigCryo 3y ago

Yes, same as all the elite universities

WeylandYutani 3y ago

The golden calf.

once_inc 3y ago

My main issue isn't the fact that the church is hoarding money and keeping, it is with the fact that the US government makes exemptions for them. What is the reasoning behind the tax-exemption and the exemption to reveal all financial information? Level the playing field and let the church be about its own business.

soco 3y ago
You'd be surprised how many countries have tax exemptions for churches of about any denomination. There's still a tradition apparently that the business of god(s) shouldn't be investigated by man, or something.
- qznc 3y ago
  If it were only tax exemptions. Germany pays half a billion every year to the church because of a deal from a hundred years ago. That is in addition to anything with taxes. https://www.ncronline.org/news/germany-continues-payments-churches-century-after-deciding-stop https://www.ncronline.org/news/germany-continues-payments-ch...
  - mcv 3y ago
    Is that different from a church tax? Many countries levy taxes on behalf of officially recognised churches. If you're registered as a church member, you pay an additional tax that goes to your church. You can generally opt out by deregistering as a member. I think Netherland used to have this in the past, but got rid of it at some point. Some European countries still have it. I assume there's still some standards for how those churches can use that money though; churches are not meant to be for-profit ventures. Though some of them (older ones especially) are quite rich. Younger churches tend to be poor.
    - qznc 3y ago
      It is not related to the church tax. It comes on top.
    - usrusr 3y ago
      As qznc started, those are separate things. One is a crazy leftover from Napoleonic days (consider the amount of changes to German statehood that thing has survived!), the other is an opt-out thing (or rather an opt-in actually, unless your parents did the "in" for you) that I actually think is super nice to have. It should be extended to the point where it's basically an API for income-scaled membership fees that's open to every org that wants to have it (and to public broadcasting, to achieve "separate from state" in a way that isn't a flat household tax)
    - josefx 3y ago
      As far as I understand the payments Germany still makes are for the properties it "bought" from the churches when the separation between church and state was declared. There have been plans to repay the remaining sum in one big payment, but those have been around for probably just as long as the agreement itself. The "church tax" is collected independently from that and it is a "paid" service the state offers to any public organization that falls into the same broad legal definition used for churches. As far as I understand the state actually makes a profit from the cut it keeps.
- BrandoElFollito 3y ago
  We do not have specific tax exemption for churches in France, they are part of the non profit organizations. When you give money to such an organization you can claim tax credit on your general taxes. And since this is France, we of course have upped the game with a special region: Alsace Moselle. Or is on the border with Germany and has been French or German in the last centuries as wars came and went. Church there has a special status (taxes, payment of priests, religion at school, concordate with the Vatican, ...) that is historical and nobody ever got rid of it. There are also other specificities because of that, notably social security.
- wanttocomment 3y ago
  [flagged]
nroets 3y ago
Churches were social security centuries ago: You contribute a tenth of your income and in exchange the church will look after you if you when disaster strikes (illness, crop failure) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tithe_barns_in_Europe https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tithe_barns_in_Europe
- NoZebra120vClip 3y ago
  Indeed, the disestablishmentarian State has usurped many functions that used to pertain to the Church. It was the Catholic Church who founded the university system as we know it today, and the hospital system we depend on. When colonists made it to the New World, who was there to educate the children? The Catholic missionaries and religious institutes founded schools and created whole districts to educate children (yes, even Native and Indigenous children such as we vilify them for in Canada.) Parents would often have at least one child set aside to dedicate to the Church, as a priest and/or a professed religious. Children would enter the seminary, monastery, or convent. In return, those insitutions would care for the underprivileged and the powerless. Many monasteries provided services to the Church and to the general public: brewing beer, cultivating gardens, baking bread, you name it. But as all these services and more are privatized and nationalized, it sort of makes the Church redundant, an NGO without purpose, if you're on the outside looking in. So why perpetuate non-profit status of these mere charities when the State can provide entitlements far beyond what meager donations can provide? It's definitely a Sophie's choice, when you get right down to it.
  - reaperman 3y ago
    Catholic Universities are still thriving. The Catholic Churches globally hoard around $100 billion and could absolutely create a world-class endowment for a huge university if they prioritized that. It’s not the states’ fault they choose not to.
    - mschuster91 3y ago
      More like 30 billion dollars, and a large swath of that is tied up in completely illiquid assets like churches or gold in reliquia [1]. [1] https://sites.lsa.umich.edu/mje/2022/05/24/the-finances-behind-vatican-city/ https://sites.lsa.umich.edu/mje/2022/05/24/the-finances-behi...
mcv 3y ago
Tax exemption should be a non-issue. Churches shouldn't be for-profit businesses, they should be associations with members contributing to a common, partly charitable goal (although honestly it's also just a club). That's what they conceptually are, and that's how they should work. They should be treated as charitable organisations at best, and then also held to those standards. Any church run as a business should not be considered a church at all. (Disclaimer: I'm a member of a Dutch church, and I have no idea what our tax situation is.)
- reaperman 3y ago
  Due to separation of church and state, churches aren’t supposed to participate in political speech either but the largest ones pretty unanimously do every major election. Legally that’s supposed to trigger taxation but it’s political suicide for anyone to go after them for this.
  - fauxpause_ 3y ago
    Is that an accurate statement? I have never heard that included in the definition of separation of church and state. Sounds wrong.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
    - jrumbut 3y ago
      It's kind of true? It's stated a little awkwardly but there is truth there. If you are funding a political campaign (not just any political speech, but an actual campaign) you have to be set up as a political campaign rather than a church. > 1954, Congress approved an amendment by Sen. Lyndon Johnson to prohibit 501(c)(3) organizations, which includes charities and churches, from engaging in any political campaign activity. To the extent Congress has revisited the ban over the years, it has in fact strengthened the ban. The most recent change came in 1987 when Congress amended the language to clarify that the prohibition also applies to statements opposing candidates https://www.irs.gov/newsroom/charities-churches-and-politics#:~:text=In%201954%2C%20Congress%20approved%20an,in%20any%20political%20campaign%20activity https://www.irs.gov/newsroom/charities-churches-and-politics.... In practice, churches are given quite a bit of leeway to engage in what any reasonable person would call political campaigning.
technion 3y ago
Happens with software vendors too. A lot of groups really feel like a business but get office 365 for free and azure credits because of their status.
runsWphotons 3y ago
https://www.mtsu.edu/first-amendment/article/972/taxation-of-religious-entities#:~:text=The%20Supreme%20Court%2C%20in%20an,not%20violate%20the%20establishment%20clause https://www.mtsu.edu/first-amendment/article/972/taxation-of....
santiagobasulto 3y ago
Nobody is answering your question. Churches (cults, religion) all over the world are tax-exempted as a way to avoid "persecution". If a cult is taxed, then a particular government could persecute a particular cult by just raising their taxes. Imagine a government that is very strong on religion A, decides to raise taxes on religion B. I'm not saying this is right or wrong. It even sounds a bit dated to me. But that's the underlying reason.
- sva_ 3y ago
  I'm not sure I follow, how would it be possible to raise taxes on a specific religion? By targeting their assets?!
  - clarionbell 3y ago
    It is extremely simple once you get out of the western secular, tolerant mindset. Just a matter of tailoring the law in the right way. For example, if you want to hurt church X which has a large following among urban population, just increase taxes on noncommercial private buildings with seating capacity over 50 in areas where population density is over some number. And make allowance for exceptions, so you can claim the law doesn't discriminate, and it's their fault that they didn't get exception. The fact that exception is impossible to get if people asking for it adhere to some creed is secondary. Even if they get it, the process can be made costly and painful to the point where they run out of money before. Or you can go explicit in your intentions, and make a law targeting that particular faith by name. It has been done in the past, it is happening now. Look at middle-east for examples. And you can go for categories too. Say you don't want any foreign religions popping up. Just raise taxes on all, and give exceptions or such to faiths that have over some number of citizen adherents. The possibilities are practically limitless once you accept that law is a tool.
    - coliveira 3y ago
      For better or worse, the tax system is here for everyone. Why should religions be the only institutions immune to it? Everything you said happens in America, just change religion for nationality (sanctions) or race. I don't see why religion should be different. Moreover, religions persecution also happens in the USA, but by other means. Catholics have been persecuted in the past, the same happened against jews during a period, and more recently to islam. The idea of tax exemption only happens to benefit the well entrenched religions: evangelical churches, mormonism in Utah, the Catholic church. It also helps up and coming scams such as scientologists, who take advantage of the provisions of the law.
herculity275 3y ago
My understanding is that a lot of the current status quo came to be as a result of the Church of Scientology's long standing dispute with the IRS. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tax_status_of_Scientology_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tax_status_of_Scientology_in_t...
devonkim 3y ago
The founders of the US didn’t want it to become like England. England gave special tax breaks for churches and churches became very, very influential parts of the State due to tax policy alone. As such, the idea was that if churches are tax exempt they would stay out of politics mostly given they don’t pay taxes in the first place. As it stands any persistent form of power (corporate, religious, perhaps even academic) that seeks to further entrench itself will seek out forms of power such as a government or large multinational to ingratiate itself to. Separation of state and anything else at all would probably have been the better doctrine to establish and follow, but oh well we’re screwed now
- coliveira 3y ago
  Founders of the US gave tax exemption to churches because they were part of chuches themselves. It is a system that has been rotten from the core foundation. Separation of church and state is, that is correct, a result of rejection of England, because they didn't want the same English system where one church dominated the others.
brent_noorda 3y ago
No organization should be tax-exempt (not religions, not charities, not foundations), and no donations to such organizations should be tax exempt. Tax exemption takes money from the one democratic charity (our government) that supports vastly more than any other, increases undemocratic amounts of influence among the wealthy, and leads to financial shenanigans such as those we see here withe the LDS hoard. I've been in position to witness all of this via my parent's wealth distribution (almost entirely to charities, starting with 50% to LDS church).
- starkd 3y ago
  The state is not the only means by which a society conducts charity. It needs to encourage charitable giving through various avenues.
  - brent_noorda 3y ago
    Does the state need to encourage charitable giving, though? Would a person stop donating $1000 of their expendable wealth to their favorite cause (e.g., hunger, cancer, cloning hitler, whatever) if that $1000 donation no longer reduced their taxes by $200 (for example)? If so, what kind of person would do that? Probably not the kind of person who ever donates to anything in the first place. Worst case, if there were no more tax-deductible charities: that person would pay the $200 taxes and only donate $800 (instead of $1000) to their favorite cause. Best case: Megawealthy would no longer leave $20 billion to their favorite cause (be that their dog, the LDS church, their love of oil drilling, or whatever), but would pay $5 in estate taxes and only have $15 billion leftover for their love of oil drilling (or whatever be their whim).
slv77 3y ago
There are two main tax exemptions which churches benefit from in the US. The first is that donation are tax deductible for taxpayers that itemize their deductions. The second is that any income from investments is also tax free. This is the case for any 503b non-profit organization in the US, not strictly for churches. For example, if you local youth soccer program was a 503b the interest from their bank account isn’t taxed. If a 503B puts its money into Microsoft stock, the profits that Microsoft makes are taxed. The capital gains the 503B gets wouldn’t get taxed when the stock was sold. The main argument in the article, not fully stated, is that the Mormon Church doesn’t do enough beneficial works to qualify as a 503b. In the US, Churches are granted 503b status without specific reviews of their societal benefit. If you want to pay someone to operate a homeless shelter or ding a bell all day to prevent the end of times, it is all the same. This is part of separation of church and state as laid out in the constitution. If there was a specific review the State could “put its thumb” on the scales and favor some churches over others in granting non-profit status. Churches, just like the local soccer club don’t have the same distribution requirements that a donor controlled 503b would have. For example if you are a billionaire and donate $1B of your appreciated stock to your donor directed fund you need to distribute 5% per year on charitable works to keep the 503b status. The article implies that the same requirement should apply to the Mormon Church that applies to a donor directed fund. This line of reasoning is incorrect. A donor directed fund has substantially no other affiliated activity that has to be considered. This is more like Harvard’s endowment where there is a school controls the fund. In the case of Harvard, if the fund didn’t distribute anything in a year there still would be substantial educational work and research going on. In the case of a donor directed non-profit nothing would be happening. The Mormon Church argues that it operates more like Harvard and that the whistleblower did not have access to the larger organizations finances. All global churches right now are facing a demographic cliff as wealthy nations are increasingly secular while most religions growth is in developing countries. In most cases Churches transfer a large amount of donations from wealthy countries like the US to less wealthy ones like Nigeria. In another 50 years many of those transfers will cease to be significant unless there is a religious revival in wealthier markets or a significant deviation in the number of children religious families have relative to the overall population in these countries. It is likely that many churches will need to wind down financial activities to be more aligned with the demographics.
willdough 3y ago
[dead]

akudha 3y ago

Unlike other nonprofits, religious organizations don't have to fully disclose all financial information to the IRS lol. What is the logic behind this? Why makes religious organizations special?

b112 3y ago
lol. What is the logic behind this? Why makes religious organizations special? The response to this is literally thousands of pages long. However, even reading recent, modern western/europeans history in depth (last 200 years), will give you more insight here. As for "why is it still this way?", you would quite literally have to rip rights out of nations constitutions, re-assess endless past case history, get people to vote on it, and on and on. There is literally no larger change you could pick, than changing the legal roles of church and state.
- hutzlibu 3y ago
  "The first clause in the Bill of Rights states that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion.”"
  - b112 3y ago
    Unless you are agreeing with me, I will suspect that you don't get the point of this part of the amendment. It's about hands off. Understand, the church (legally) predates, and is not controlled by the state in western legal case history and laws. The church came first, not state. Again, just describing how we got here.
    - hutzlibu 3y ago
      I am not an american, but I understand it as a clear intended separation of state and church. So also no privileges especially for churches.
      - fsckboy 3y ago

fxtentacle 3y ago

"He wants Ensign Peak Advisors to pay the taxes he says it owes on the $100 billion built from tithing. If the IRS decides Nielsen is right, he could be rewarded with up to 30% of what's collected"

xmcqdpt2 3y ago
I wouldn't be surprised if he got a few millions from the SEC suit against Ensign Peak already, but he would get very rich indeed if the IRS assessed back taxes on them. That doesn't mean he's wrong! I don't believe there is much debate about the main facts in the SEC suit anyway, so we know the church owns Ensign Peak, that Ensign peak has at least tens of billions in securities and that they distributed those to a bunch of shell companies so that they wouldn't have to report their holdings, primarily so as to avoid public resentment.

testHNac 3y ago

> David Nielsen: I thought we were gonna change the world. And we just grew the bank account. Ahh ... Welcome to the real world. That's what I used to believe long back. Later I realized that most so called NGOs are just for lining up the pockets of the management, and to help them lead a luxurious life paid for by the NGOs 'administrative expenses'. > David Nielsen says since it was created in 1997, the reserve fund has swelled beyond $100 billion …twice the size of Harvard's endowment or the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. David Nielsen: You could solve big problems with $100 billion. I get his point. But there is a counter argument too. I have seen some business houses establish Trusts that own shares of various companies. The annual income of these trusts from interest, dividends and profits etc goes into various social activities. This ensures that the organization will last for decades instead of spending all the money in one go. That allows them to take up long term projects was my understanding. ---- The real issue is that the Church claims that they are investing money in humanitarian activities and the whistleblower says that they are not. But I think that the whistleblower might not have access to those accounts as those belong to the Church, he was with the investment arm. ---- IRS might be looking to expand it's Tax base. Taxing Religious organizations can be a good rallying cry for Democratic voter base. After the rich and wealthy, go after the religions to raise more Taxes.

nabla9 3y ago
They broke the law and then knew it. Mormonism is a money and political power squiring cult. 10% tithe payments is control.
ricardobeat 3y ago
> I think that the whistleblower might not have access to those accounts as those belong to the Church, he was with the investment arm. He does clarify that in the interview: the money coming into the fund has never been used for any of that. It’s 150B stashed vs 1B/year that’s actually being spent on “humanitarian activities”.
- testHNac 3y ago
  Exactly. But my point is that he won't have access to that data. As that would be the Church's expense accounts. The whistleblower was in the investment arm. The whole issue boils down to these two statements : >Christopher Waddell: No, because then everyone would be telling us what they wanted us to do with the money. > Last year the church says it spent over a billion dollars on humanitarian aid, including food production. > Christopher Waddell: In any given month you may have an average of nine transfers going from Ensign Peak back to the church to fund all church operations. All humanitarian work-- education work, all the work of the church they fund. > David Nielsen: Money's going in and out of the cash accounts all the time. But Ensign Peak's funds were never used for any charitable purpose, as to my knowledge the whole time I was there. So there's a bit of a distinction here that's important. I just find it funny ( from what I understood of the article ) that they don't have to give any audit the accounts and submit to IRS. Let them not get taxed as a religious organization. But at least the money trail is something the IRS and Government should be made aware of.

sylware 3y ago

Oh? What scale? Same scale than the worldwide economy health defining blackrock and vanguard?

gjvc 3y ago

Many universities are hedge funds or property developers with an interest in education at this point.

davidgerard 3y ago

the SEC has started looking into Ensign Peak Advisors and busted them at least once https://www.christianpost.com/news/mormon-church-fined-5m-for-obscuring-billions-in-investmestments.html https://www.christianpost.com/news/mormon-church-fined-5m-fo... fine was only $5m, but it's on record that they're violators

MrBuddyCasino 3y ago

It was just a matter of time until the political establishment set their sights on an ideological enemy. I doubt this will be successful, but we can expect more of this.

tomas789 3y ago

Amatures. They need to start their own country and then anything is legal. A business model that is proven by milenia.

pjc50 3y ago
The Mormons kind of tried that and lost https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1838_Mormon_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1838_Mormon_War
- lostlogin 3y ago
  The Catholic Church got into this and their banking history is fascinating. Eg https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roberto_Calvi https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roberto_Calvi
  - pjc50 3y ago
    Oh, the Catholic Church _is_ a country, in the form of the Vatican. (It retains a highly circuitous and squiggly-line but unbroken link to the Roman Empire!)
ramraj07 3y ago
That's what they try to do in Expanse anyway. Build a generational ship to try and jet out to their own system light years away.
TallGuyShort 3y ago
Yeah the irony here is getting regulated by a government that demands more, still goes into awe inspiring amounts of debt, still manages to flirt with defaulting on it, and whose leaders get even wealthier.

thom 3y ago

The same's true of even fairly innocent looking denominations in UK churches. If you're a large land/property owner (that doesn't have to pay business rates), with thousands of people willing to give you donations each week (on which you don't necessarily pay any tax) then it's hard to lose money even with dwindling congregations. The Church of England has something like £10bn of assets, but even small denominations own hundreds of both commercial and residential properties. A lot of the more liquid assets were invested in absolutely stuff like oil or tobacco companies, but most have at least attempted to move towards more ethical investments. Source: child of the manse.

Borrible 3y ago

I have always admired the modesty of Mammon temples, though.

jmacd 3y ago

https://thestrong.substack.com/p/can-facebook-keep-up-missing-the https://thestrong.substack.com/p/can-facebook-keep-up-missin... "In recent years, there has been a notable shift in online activity from the Social Graph, where users connect and interact with their friends and family, to the Content Graph, which emphasizes the discovery and consumption of the latest and most engaging content. This transition has changed how people use social media, with many users prioritizing content consumption over social interactions. The focus is now on viral videos, memes, and trending news from unknown sources. No longer do we spend our days reading the personal updates and activities of friends and acquaintances."

pjc50 3y ago
(comment on wrong thread?)
- jmacd 3y ago
  apologies, yes. Wrong thread. +dang can you delete?

woolcap 3y ago

[flagged]

rdxm 3y ago
tax law is tax law, it's that simple. if the hedge fund did what the whistleblower alleges, then bye-bye tax exempt status. also since when is a rainy day / reserve fund unique to a particular religion? it's been common sense financial practice for longer than your particular religion has been in existence.
- Game_Ender 3y ago
  Mormons have a “history of calamity” so to speak where they found themselves having to move or hit by various disasters. This is very recently in religious terms, last 200 years or so. So this is reflected in much more focus on having a financial cushion as well as other disaster preparedness things like a few months of food saved up at home. Think of it as the religious version of your great grandmother who lived through that depression always saving odd things and being extra thrifty. Some scars run very deep and have long term behavioral changes.
  - tomrod 3y ago
    That's a hagiographic way of viewing Mormon (specifically, Brighamite) history, given they brought the vast majority of their calamities upon themselves (especially in the early days). Be it from a womanizing, ephebophilic founder who speculated with the financial fortunes of early members in Ohio, to disregarding pluralism on the frontier in their establishment of hegemony, to declaring himself a God after being a priest and a king with the second anointing, to the establishment of a theocracy in Utah and partial theocracy in Illinois, to the usurping of civil law for ecclesiastical law up into the 1900s, to the exercise of polygamy, to the persecution and targeting of established religions, to ongoing racist and sexist cultural philosophies and doctrines, to the hoarding of wealth, to paying tens of thousands of dollars for rugs, to the economic favoring of corporate leaders (e.g multiple homes for their leaders) and family (ever wonder who puts in the curtain dividers) there have been many, shall we say, missteps. Fortunately for Mormons who remain in the Brighamite branch, there are several counterfactual examples of where their religion can go, not the least of which is the branch housed in the Community of Christ, which has followed a much more ecumenical path and openly confronted the history that was hidden for a long time.

pavlov 3y ago

Religions tend to become the opposite of what they preach. The church of Jesus became an actual state for centuries. Buddhist monasteries founded on non-violence became fortresses populated by warrior monks. Hindu religion perpetuated the caste system. And so on. No major world religion is exempt. The LDS church is a curious speedrun of religion’s possibilities. Should we be esoteric? A state? A hedge fund? A polygamous matchmaker? A business networking opportunity? They seem to have tried everything in less than two centuries.

ristlane 3y ago
I can’t speak to other religions, but Jesus did not speak against the state, or against statehood as such. Meanwhile the Catholic Church is the largest charitable organization in the world, despite all of its problems due to consisting of deeply flawed humans.
- voytec 3y ago
  Catholic Church is also the largest organization in the world which openly protects pedophiles.
  - number6 3y ago
    I bet it is also a hedge fund
    - hutzlibu 3y ago
      Well, they have the official "Institute for the Works of Religion" https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Institute_for_the_Works_of_Religion https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Institute_for_the_Works_of_R... A proper bank, with historic ties to the Mafia.
  - ristlane 3y ago
    It was a disaster for the church and for humanity. Ireland used to be the most Catholic nation in the world; not anymore. Their faith was obliterated by the sex abuse scandal.

gadders 3y ago

So is Harvard: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harvard_University_endowment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harvard_University_endowment

idrathernot 3y ago
And almost every other entity with more than $1B in assets.

jasmer 3y ago

It’s their choice if they want to save their money. There’s no whistle to blow.

todd_t 3y ago
If there's no whistle to blow, why did the SEC issue a 5 million dollar fine?
- jasmer 3y ago
  My bad choice of words, I meant to say that saving money is not wrong or immoral and that a lot of the arguments here are based on that as opposed to the materiality of having done something wrong by the SEC.

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rayiner 3y ago

Sounds a lot like Harvard, Yale, etc.

thenerdhead 3y ago

Mormons are like freemasons. They are both widely known organizations that have their secrets. The more devout you are to the organization, the more you get to know and participate in. The funny thing about this whistleblower is that he has a twin brother named Lars. They both filed this letter about 3 years ago. The fact that it was picked up by mainstream news is actually quite surprising given I lived in Utah majority of my life and none of this stuff made headlines.

NickC25 3y ago

Clandestine? It's been out in the open for years. I was in SLC over a decade ago and there was this big shiny new mall that was completely owned by the Mormon Church. I don't doubt that the Church gives some of its income towards legitimate charitable causes. But how much of that some in comparison to how much it spends on other things (like private businesses, political lobbying, land ownership for non religious purposes, etc.) is the real issue here....and I would guess the distribution skews heavily towards things that aren't exactly charitable or helpful for the poor and downtrodden. The Mormon Church is nothing more than a social club that has a large for-profit investment arm.

tomrod 3y ago
They also claim humanitarian donation on hours their members volunteer within congregations, as well as member-driven humanitarian contributions ("fast offerings".) Meanwhile, there is a constant drive to get people off the "dole" even if they are elderly or infirmed. External humanitarian giving up until the first time this was pointed out a few years back was on the order of $40M per year. Not counting the free-will time and internal, grassroot fast offerings given to other members at a congregation level. It's a bit sickening.
- NickC25 3y ago
  Right - so of that supposed $100 billion, they claim they spent 0.04% of that per year on humanitarian giving. I get 0.06% in interest from my bank each year. Accounts in the billions, let alone tens or hundreds of billions probably get rates higher than 0.06%. Hypothetically, The Church donates part of the interest it earns on its account(s) and claims that money alone is enough because the pure dollar amount seems large to folks like you or I - $40 million dollars is a large amount of money and probably does help a lot of people....just not enough people that they could help but make the deliberate choice not to. A bit sickening? This is a religious organization after all which is supposedly dedicated to improving humanity. It's more than sickening at this state - it's vomit-inducing.

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sproketboy 3y ago

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cs702 3y ago

Paraphrasing Pournelle's Iron Law of Bureaucracy[a]: Initially, the hedge fund was formed and run by people devoted to the goals of the church, such as dedicated missionaries. Over time, the hedge fund has been taken over by managers devoted to the goals of the hedge fund itself. University endowments are hedge funds too -- they have universities instead of churches attached to them. [a] https://www.jerrypournelle.com/reports/jerryp/iron.html https://www.jerrypournelle.com/reports/jerryp/iron.html

vlunkr 3y ago

As a recently disaffected Mormon, let me tell outsiders a few reasons why I think this is a huge issue. I see some saying the church can do what it wants with it’s money, I want to explain why I don’t think it’s ok. - members are encouraged to pay tithing before all other expenses. People are out there deciding whether to pay bills or tithing, while the church sits on this hoard. That’s hard to swallow. - the church preaches against materialism. Any Mormon can tell you about the “great and spacious building.” It’s a story from the Book of Mormon about materialism or worldliness distracting you from finding the love of God. So what does the church do with tithing? They build an expensive shopping mall right next to their sacred temple and headquarters. What? I don’t have a problem with the mall on its own, but the irony is overwhelming. - they own, or at least during the leak they owned, tons of stock in Facebook and other big tech. They’ve earned so much against the dangers of social media, it feels really hypocritical. - they claim to be saving money for the Second Coming. I think this is nonsensical. There are two phases to the Second Coming, calamities/Armageddon, then Jesus comes to fix everything. You don’t need money for those. By all means, hoard emergency supplies, but what are you going to do with your Facebook stock when governments have collapsed? - obviously, hiding behind shell companies. I expect this from businesses, not from the church who asks their members if they are “honest in their dealings with their fellow man” regularly. - there are different ways to interpret the original revelation about tithing in the church. They have chosen the maximal version. In the Doctrine and Covenants, it says “one tenth of their interest annually.” Interest is not the same as income. It’s been alternatively interpreted as 10% of any investments, or 10% after all other expenses are paid. At one point a prophet also said that the law is only for those who have means to pay. The conveniently don’t use that quote anymore. Anyways, this is all very fresh in my mind so these are my rantings.

TrueGeek 3y ago
"encouraged to pay tithing before all other expenses" is an understatement
mrangle 3y ago
Your complaints are moral and subjective. They don't seem to fall under the category of "huge problem". All Churches endeavor to "hoards". Not one doesn't. For a variety of good reasons. That being said, your moral complaints are valid for you. I hope that you can reconcile them or find a community that better meets you where your values are.

AndyMcConachie 3y ago

>Sharyn Alfonsi: What about, you know, the idea that secrecy builds mistrust? >Christopher Waddell: Well, we don't feel it's being secret. We feel it's being confidential. This line ROFL. Seriously, how can you listen to someone talk like this and not think they are completely deceitful?

stainablesteel 3y ago

good for them tbh, despite their weird sides they do get some peculiar aspects of life right

lcall 3y ago

Here is a historical perspective that explains why the Church's savings make so much sense. Basically, the Church has had financial problems in the past due to spending more (on things like construction) than it received from tithing, and the strenuous efforts needed at those times. It is important to be able to continue the extensive worldwide operations even in a major downturn. The Church contributes to extensive humanitarian aid, education, construction, building maintenance, publishing, etc, and counsels its members to avoid debt and save for a rainy day, and it tries to follow that same advice. https://www.deseret.com/faith/2023/5/14/23649253/cbs-60-minutes-mormon-lds-church-finance-story-what-it-missed https://www.deseret.com/faith/2023/5/14/23649253/cbs-60-minu...

lcall 3y ago
FWIW, another with similar perspective: https://www.ksl.com/article/50646052/opinion-whats-behind-american-medias-unhealthy-fixation-on-mormons-inc https://www.ksl.com/article/50646052/opinion-whats-behind-am...

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cameroncf 3y ago

First thing that comes to my mind reading this article is that they are just saving it all up to build the Nauvoo from the show "The Expanse".