DiscussMormonism.com

By David Noyce
| Nov. 10, 2022, 6:00 a.m.
| Updated: 7:36 a.m.


Dollars and Sense: Open up the Books

He’s said it before and now — in the wake of the latest news stories hounding the church over its money — he’s saying it again:

“This issue would go away,” Sam Brunson, a Latter-day Saint who teaches tax law at Loyola University Chicago, writes in a By Common Consent blog post, “if the worldwide church were transparent about its finances, a thing entirely within its power.”

Trouble is, the Utah-based faith seems “obsessed with being financially opaque,” he states. “It values its financial privacy to a degree that it can be harmful to the public’s perception.”

The church’s secretiveness not only raises questions among the public when these news stories arise but also makes it difficult to judge the accuracy of the news stories themselves.

Brunson points to questions surrounding Latter-day Saint Charities, the church’s humanitarian arm, and a Sydney Morning Herald story accusing the faith of overstating its charitable giving.

“In the church’s 2021 disclosure, it doesn’t mention anything about Latter-day Saint Charities in connection with its giving,” the tax professor notes. “And, frankly, here the opacity gets in my way. I don’t know the purpose of LDS Charities. I don’t know whether the church does the bulk of its humanitarian giving through LDS Charities or if it just uses LDS Charities for particular endeavors. But without knowing whether LDS Charities is the exclusive font of church humanitarian aid or not, its financial statements don’t tell us much. Again, it is clearly possible that the church is overstating its humanitarian aid. Its lack of transparency means that’s something we can’t objectively evaluate.”

The Community of Christ, formerly the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, releases annual reports of income and expenses detailing numbers in the millions, and is much more transparent about its finances than its much-larger Salt Lake City-based cousin, whose principal investment arm alone amasses reserve assets in the tens of billions.

So do faithful Latter-day Saints — who may have the biggest stake in how their tithing dollars are spent — want their leaders to be more open about church wealth?

Maybe not. A 2020 Salt Lake Tribune poll showed barely a third of “very active” Utah members would back a law requiring churches to disclose their finances.

Given the litany of headlines about the faith’s riches since then, however, that percentage may have changed.

“I believe that the church should be more financially transparent,” Brunson writes, “and that such transparency would be good for it in both the short and the long run.”

https://www.sltrib.com/religion/

The church would gleefully publish its financial particulars every year, including tithing and other donations, if it believed that doing so would cast the organization in a favorable public light, make members proud of the good that their tribe is doing in the world, etc.

But, for as long the church knows that its financial particulars, if publicly known, would cast it in a negative light, it will never open its books.

Frustrating.

I've heard enough reports of mismanaged tithing funds, like quite large, and Salt Lake comes and does an audit and 'fixes' things. It was a shelf item to the financial clerks involved when at general conference this kind of thing is said:

Based upon audits performed, Church Auditing is of the opinion that, in all material respects, contributions received, expenditures made, and assets of the Church for the year 2021 have been recorded and administered in accordance with Church-approved budgets, accounting practices, and policies. The Church follows the practices taught to its members of living within a budget, avoiding debt, and saving against a time of need.

Which they realize that part of the church's policies is the catch-all to excommunicate anyone who messed with funds and otherwise cover it up as best as possible. You can't cover it up if they are transparent. They would have to expose at least generally how much they pay out to settle or avoid sex abuse lawsuits that would rock some members view of the church.

Wonhyo wrote: ↑

Thu Nov 10, 2022 6:34 pm

The church would gleefully publish its financial particulars every year, including tithing and other donations, if it believed that doing so would cast the organization in a favorable public light, make members proud of the good that their tribe is doing in the world, etc.

But, for as long the church knows that its financial particulars, if publicly known, would cast it in a negative light, it will never open its books.

Frustrating.

Agreed. If the financial dealings of the Church were in any way faith promoting they would be published in a heartbeat. Which means they aren't faith promoting.

Everybody Wang Chung wrote: ↑

Thu Nov 10, 2022 5:46 pm

The church’s secretiveness not only raises questions among the public when these news stories arise but also makes it difficult to judge the accuracy of the news stories themselves.

Church apologists would argue that dodginess has been so thoroughly ingrained into practice, that its absence would be unsettling to Church members, especially on the WTF matters that we still do not know about but if we knew would raise our consternation.

It’s not a good look to hoard billions of dollars. But at the same time, the church will never be this large again. They will very likely keep shrinking from this point on. That gives the leaders a lot of fear about sustainability, so everything is driven by the need to KSW (keep Scientology working), no matter what. No matter how small the church gets after millions leave.

Transparency has never been a strength of the church. Beginning with brother Joseph.

They can't be financially transparent, especially not to the members of this so-called 'church' because millions would 'apostatize' overnight.