LDS Church’s tax avoidance may amount to $90 million - Widows Mite

[I Have Questions]

When I first heard of the hoard of money accumulated by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and its investment or financial management arm, Ensign Peak Advisors, I think that it had allegedly reached fifty billion dollars. Soon thereafter, it had supposedly doubled to a hundred billion dollars. Relatively quickly, online critics next had it soaring to two hundred billion. And a couple of days ago I read an online claim that it is now approaching half a trillion. That’s five hundred billion dollars. Trying to get some perspective on this, I’ve seen estimates that place the global M2 money supply as of early 2025 (i.e., cash, checking accounts, and certain savings) at more than $90 trillion, which leads me to believe that the current plausible upper limit for allegations regarding the size of the estimated Ensign Peak fund may be somewhat less than $100 trillion. But then again, the total value of world financial assets and investments, including derivatives and stock markets, probably goes into the quadrillions, which makes me think that estimates of Ensign Peak’s holdings can still potentially go much, much higher. I’m currently trying to find a way to retain the folks at Ensign Peak to manage my personal investment portfolio. If I’m successful in my attempt, I expect to be a multibillionaire by Christmas.

The church has so much wealth, that it has admitted publicly that it felt it needed to hide the amount, because it feared that a large number of faithful members would tithe less.

What sum would cause such fears? 1 billion dollars? 10 billion dollars? At what point did the Mormon church’s financial stewards begin to sweat, and decide to defraud the public?

It’s a great point you make, and Peterson avoids addressing it, favouring instead to go down the childish hyperbole route that avoids it. Again.

The Church Leaders do not trust their members to do the right thing if they knew everything that the Church leaders are up to. That’s the take away from this. They haven’t even apologised to the membership for running a nefarious shell company scheme with donated funds which cost the Church $5 million. How much has tithing dropped since the size of the hoard and the fine came out? I’ll wager that it doesn’t amount to a drop of $5 million - which then suggests their original decision lacked divine inspiration and foresight. It certainly lacked the honesty and integrity that Church leaders insist they operate with. Sorry lads, I’m afraid you’ve been caught lying. Prophets, Seers, Revelators? Not so much. Liars? Definitely.