Washington Post: Mormon Church has misled members on finance

[_Mormonicious]

The best part was the Mormon Corporations spokesman’s comment about storing Wheat and other Foodstuffs for the Apocalypse and justifiably Money.

But that STUPID “F” failed to understand that WHEAT AND FOODSTUFF WILL BECOME THE MONEY.

STUPID damned Mormons

[_Dr Moore]

FP statement was posted on Newsroom

https://newsroom.churchofjesuschrist.or ... h-finances

We take seriously the responsibility to care for the tithes and donations received from members. The vast majority of these funds are used immediately to meet the needs of the growing Church including more meetinghouses, temples, education, humanitarian work and missionary efforts throughout the world. Over many years, a portion is methodically safeguarded through wise financial management and the building of a prudent reserve for the future. This is a sound doctrinal and financial principle taught by the Savior in the Parable of the Talents and lived by the Church and its members. All Church funds exist for no other reason than to support the Church’s divinely appointed mission.

Claims being currently circulated are based on a narrow perspective and limited information. The Church complies with all applicable law governing our donations, investments, taxes, and reserves. We continue to welcome the opportunity to work with officials to address questions they may have.

[_I have a question]

FP statement was posted on Newsroom

https://newsroom.churchofjesuschrist.or ... h-finances

We take seriously the responsibility to care for the tithes and donations received from members. The vast majority of these funds are used immediately to meet the needs of the growing Church including more meetinghouses, temples, education, humanitarian work and missionary efforts throughout the world. Over many years, a portion is methodically safeguarded through wise financial management and the building of a prudent reserve for the future. This is a sound doctrinal and financial principle taught by the Savior in the Parable of the Talents and lived by the Church and its members. All Church funds exist for no other reason than to support the Church’s divinely appointed mission.

Claims being currently circulated are based on a narrow perspective and limited information. The Church complies with all applicable law governing our donations, investments, taxes, and reserves. We continue to welcome the opportunity to work with officials to address questions they may have.

No problem, give us all the information so we can judge for ourselves.

[_Doctor CamNC4Me]

You don’t get to hoard money meant for charity and turn it into a $100B war chest without paying taxes on it. That’s literally a scheme or scam. There’s no question this real estate holdings conglomerate disguised as a church should be taxed. All of it. Tithes are just unreported income at this point.

- Doc

[_Symmachus]

The only interesting part of this story to me is how it reflects back to each person what they already think about the Church.

I'm sure Jana Riess is heartbroken, but then she already was and seems to derive great meaning from being disappointed. She converted to this LDS thing with full knowledge, after all.

Daniel Peterson, as usual, offers no new insight even into his own thinking, which is easily reducible to loyalty to his primary-age view of the Church when it is not simply egotistical posturing.

I'm gonna wager that believers will see this as an anti-Mormon attack, on the one hand, and as a confirmation on the other that it is the True Church—how else could they get so rich!? Good investments are a sign of god's favor.

Anyone could have predicted that many people here and in other "ex-Mormon" spaces will see this as a revelation of what the Church is really about and even as an omen sent from the ex-Mormon gods that will augur in the Church's downfall at the hands of the Assyrians—I mean, the IRS.

So, I'm having a hard time with phrases of the type "the IRS won't allow" this or that, just as I do with claims that there is nothing to see here. Prof. Hackney's opinions are obviously of some weight, but at the same time, he seems to be doing nothing more than commenting on the Washington Post's story, not on the case itself. The story seems entirely about the complaint, which apparently had no documents for support and was filed by a person who not only has an ideological claim against the Church but also a pecuniary interest (if the IRS agrees with him, he will come out quite wealthy). None of this is a problem in isolation, but it seems to me that all I know from this story is that the Church has a huge investment fund (knew that), that it doesn't use it for charity purposes on a wide or regular basis (knew that, but of course "charity" is such a slippery category), and that members aren't given a full picture (no kidding!).

I'm not going to apologize for skepticism, which is reasonable and not motivated by any special fondness for the Church, but this feels a little bit like the "October Surprise" of Tom Philips back in 2012. I remember well my astonishment when I discovered how many ex-Mormons were expert in the law of the United Kingdom.

My amateur take-away: unless there is a clearly documented case of a blatant violation of the law, this is a nothing story to everyone but ex-Mormons once it has served the clickbait needs of the Washington Post (democracy dies in darkness...sure). It may be a "legitimate question," as the learned professor in Pittsburgh put it, but I gotta believe that even the Mormon church is not too cheap to spend some small fraction of its $100 billion dollars on lawyers who are at least as clever as the professor. Even assuming the IRS takes this seriously to the point where its agents read past the ex-Mormon manifesto and even levies a fine, surely, the Church can challenge the IRS in court if it believes itself injured by such a fine. But if that were to happen, is this really going to hang on nothing more than the vague statutory language quoted in the Washington Post article and a vaguely aesthetic feeling that $100 billion is too much to keep in reserve?

[_Dr Moore]

I'm going to go on record and say that brother Lars screwed the pooch on this whole affair.

If the complaint has merit, and it appears to, then this is a wonderful point in time to facilitate a meaningful conversation between the church, its members and the world about what to do with $5-10 billion per year in tax free annuities that Ensign Peak now throws off.

But instead, brother Lars couldn't resist an opportunity to score a few social media points with his childish video and poorly constructed expose document.

His churlish injection into the spotlight really diminishes the most salient arguments of the complaint, and makes the whole affair easy to dismiss as someone who went off the rails with an axe to grind.

Lars, you should have just shut up, hung back, and wait patiently for the money.

[_Stem]

If Lars and his brother were set to try and weasel money out of the church, then this was doomed from the start.

I'd say the last two posts make some good points. Thanks gents.

[_I have a question]

If you are a happy member of the LDS Church, then The Post’s revelations are either much ado about nothing or a hit job on God’s own church by one of the leading lights of the Eastern Establishment Lamestream Media. Fake News.
If you aren’t, well, it’s about damn time someone noticed that these supposed followers of the Lamb of God are not only wheeling and dealing in astronomical sums — a stash much larger than not only the biggest nonprofit foundations but also rivaling the world’s largest for-very-much-profit corporations — but hiding it. From the IRS and from their own tithe-paying members.
And it is the members who, if the revelations are true, have the most to complain about.

https://www.sltrib.com/opinion/commenta ... ds-church/

The solution to the LDS Church’s dilemma is, of course, actually pretty simple. Open the books. And, if there is anything there that’s not up to code, make it good.
No church needs a USS Enterprise. But the LDS is not the only religion that should have a PWC, E&Y or KPMG keeping very public track of its affairs.

(George Pyle is the editorial page editor of The Salt Lake Tribune.)

[_I have a question]

Jana Riess

What’s weirdly karmic about this whole debacle is that it could have been avoided if the church had simply continued to exercise transparency about its income and expenditures, as it did in the early and mid-20th century. Instead, its commitment to secrecy, presumably to avoid criticism, has opened the door to further criticism.
The optimal way for the church to deal with this is to fight fire with fire, releasing all of its own internal financial documents. Other than the shocking size of its portfolio, it’s possible that those revelations will turn out to be a yawnfest.
It’s easy for me to believe that the church is guilty of hoarding its wealth; despite its privileged status, it still actively perceives itself as a victim of religious persecution and learned early on to trust only its own. As well, it’s facing a future in which its “First World” growth has flatlined or even (in the case of Europe) entered into negative territory, while new converts are still joining in, for example, West Africa. Perhaps its utterly excessive stockpile has less to do with the theological possibility of Jesus’ return than it does with the prosaic current reality that the church is only growing in areas of the global south, where its members cannot self-sustain their buildings and programs.
It’s harder for me to believe that a church that is, as a rule, so meticulous has been intentionally defrauding its members and the federal government. It’s possible, of course, but . . . really? Even these internal documents show an institution that has stayed conservative with a 60/40 investment portfolio, so it’s not a question that the church is engaging in wild speculation with money contributed by the faithful. Neither does it seem to be a question of top leaders becoming personally rich from the church’s wealth; what greed and hoarding propensities leaders have demonstrated seem to have enriched the church as an institution, not lined their own pockets. So the report’s references to the Mormon “gigachurch” in conjunction with megachurches’ personal jets and private islands seem unwarranted.
The ball is in the church’s court now. Its mandate is to not only demonstrate to the IRS that it has been in compliance with the law, but also to reassure believers that it has adhered to the fourfold mission outlined in one of its training slides for new employees — which includes “caring for the poor and needy.”

https://www.sltrib.com/religion/2019/12 ... tleblower/

[_Kishkumen]

I'm going to go on record and say that brother Lars screwed the pooch on this whole affair.

If the complaint has merit, and it appears to, then this is a wonderful point in time to facilitate a meaningful conversation between the church, its members and the world about what to do with $5-10 billion per year in tax free annuities that Ensign Peak now throws off.

But instead, brother Lars couldn't resist an opportunity to score a few social media points with his childish video and poorly constructed expose document.

His churlish injection into the spotlight really diminishes the most salient arguments of the complaint, and makes the whole affair easy to dismiss as someone who went off the rails with an axe to grind.

Lars, you should have just shut up, hung back, and wait patiently for the money.

Agreed.