whistleblower on Church finances

[rockpond]

32 minutes ago, Nofear said:

That the Church factually donates quite a bit to charitable causes belies that assertion. I see little reason it would funnel those donations through EPA. That would be silly.

Sorry, I’ll correct it.  These numbers assume that what the whistleblower alleges is correct:

Donate 65 cents and then invest the remaining $9.35 to grow.  Reinvest the dividends with no plan to ever give any of it away.

 

[pogi]

19 minutes ago, Garden Girl said:

Don't others do the same thing?  It's prudent to do so...   

If not, they are not following the Church's counsel.  How great would it be if no member ever needed to touch the 100 billion because they followed the Church's counsel/example and were prepared with food, water, and financial reserves in emergency?  How cool would it be to then be able to use those sacred reserves to bless the lives of others outside our congregations in need?  By following the Church's counsel, the Church's reserve becomes a much more powerful tool for good as the scope of the safety net is widened.   

[CV75]

1 hour ago, Analytics said:

The Church has 30,500 wards and branches. So, a $100 billion rainy-day fund is about $3.3 million per congregation. Do you think that is a fair way to look at it, and if so, do you agree with Pogi that $3.3 million per congregation isn't that significant of a rainy day fund? In your judgment, how high should it be?

"Rainy day" to me includes the potential for an extreme devaluation of the dollar. Or a perfect storm of that and at the same time a rapid expansion into Asia and elsewhere, or otherwise prepare for the Second Coming (after which who knows how currency will be structured and used?). The Gospels doesn't say what Jesus and His disciples did with "the bag" and there are many seemingly conflicting attitudes expressed by the Lord concerning wealth. Which to me signifies there are many valid ways to manage the sacred treasury than striking an equilibrium between inflow and outflow. So as to what else might be done in the meantime with all that money: Doesn't really matter!

[rockpond]

1 hour ago, pogi said:

The Church's holdings are equivalent to the Lord's storehouse. 

You think that when Malachi told the priests to bring all the tithes into the storehouse that he was telling them that they should invest that there “may be meat in mine house”?

1 hour ago, pogi said:

I guess you would have to talk to your bishop about that.  Not my call.  I would suspect not, as I don't think you have been given keys or authority to take or manage sacred tithes - it is not for you to invest and borrow against for personal gain.

I don’t think it’s appropriate either. 

1 hour ago, pogi said:

Probably, but these entities are not intended to be used fore that purpose.  It is claimed that we have 100 billion in case of emergency, but with your hypothetical, it could all be tied up elsewhere. 

According to Nielsen, some of that $100b was invested in City Creek and Beneficial Life.  Not exactly liquid. 

[Duncan]

I'm guessing that someone, next general conference, will talk about this or something akin to it

[rockpond]

1 hour ago, Amulek said:

The church has already decided that it is in its best interest to not add fuel to the story. They are happy to talk to the IRS, but they aren't interested in having an ongoing, public dialogue on the matter. For what it's worth, I think that's the right decision. 

 

Fine by me. Perhaps when shown that they are mistaken about that particular "fact" (an easy task), they will perhaps be a little more skeptical about uncritically accepting everything else that they heard from that same source. 

 

We’re as transparent as we know how to be in telling the truth. We have to do that. That’s the Lord’s way.

M. Russell Ballard

[pogi]

16 minutes ago, rockpond said:

You think that when Malachi told the priests to bring all the tithes into the storehouse that he was telling them that they should invest that there “may be meat in mine house”?

In the same economy and size of the church and infrastructure, he probably would have.  Why not?  Seems foolish not to.

16 minutes ago, rockpond said:

I don’t think it’s appropriate either. 

The difference is you weren’t called and don't have keys or authority to oversee the tithes of the church; and these investments and moneys are not borrowed against for personal financial benefit.  What is appropriate for them and the church as a whole may not be appropriate for you individually.

16 minutes ago, rockpond said:

 According to Nielsen, some of that $100b was invested in City Creek and Beneficial Life.  Not exactly liquid. 

But it is doubtful that all the 100 billion is from tithing.  It was an investment that hardly touched the reserves and draws more people into temple square where missionaries await.  Probably makes money too.

 

Edited December 20, 2019 by pogi

[rockpond]

3 minutes ago, pogi said:

In the same economy and size of the church and infrastructure, he probably would have.  Why not?  Seems foolish not to.

The difference is you weren’t called and don't have keys or authority to oversee the tithes of the church; and these investments and moneys are not borrowed against for personal financial benefit.  What is appropriate for them may not be appropriate for you.

But it is doubtful that all the 100 billion is from tithing.  It was a safe investment that hardly touched the reserves and draws more people into temple square where missionaries await.

 

On what grounds are you concluding that “it is doubtful” that the $100b fund came from tithing.  Nielsen’s report alleges that it came directly from tithing.  And the Church has not stated otherwise. 

[Analytics]

34 minutes ago, pogi said:

Again, if the reserve was divided evenly between members (not counting non-members needing help within ward boundaries) it would come to about 6 1/2 thousand each.  You can try and present those figures to appear significant in which ever way you want, but that is what it comes down to on an individual level. I personally wouldn't feel comfortable depending on that as a rainy day fund.

You don't think the church can depend upon $100 Billion as a rainy day fund? Why not? How much do you think it needs, and why?

On an individual basis, how many families in the Church have their own rainy day fund of $6,500 for each member of the family (e.g. $26,000 for a family of four). That's probably enough to cover at least 6 months of living expenses for the vast majority of families, but if that isn't enough, what is enough? Should families stop paying tithing so that they can save faster and reach the limit? After all, if there is an emergency I'm sure the Church might help with fast offering money, but the individual families can't expect Ensign Peak Advisors to bail them out--the Church never distributes this money.

 

[pogi]

2 minutes ago, rockpond said:

Nielsen’s report alleges that it came directly from tithing. 

No, it doesn’t.  I have already addressed this but understand why you might have missed it considering how fast this is moving.  I’d repost now but am on my phone. 

[Analytics]

A few posters have been arguing that $100 Billion for a rainy-day fund really isn't that much, implying that it should continue aggressively safe until it has enough.

To this, I asked the question, "How much is enough?" Several posters responded to that post, but none answered the question. It brings to mind this song:

 

[rockpond]

11 minutes ago, pogi said:

No, it doesn’t.  I have already addressed this but understand why you might have missed it considering how fast this is moving.  I’d repost now but am on my phone. 

Where do you claim that Nielsen claims the funds originated?  Because in the Infants on Thrones interview he states that it is a portion of tithes and offerings. 

[bluebell]

9 minutes ago, Analytics said:

A few posters have been arguing that $100 Billion for a rainy-day fund really isn't that much, implying that it should continue aggressively safe until it has enough.

To this, I asked the question, "How much is enough?" Several posters responded to that post, but none answered the question. It brings to mind this song:

 

I don’t know how much is enough because I don’t know what expenses the fund would need to cover when it finally began to rain. 

[The Nehor]

I read the 74 page pdf. The IRS is not the intended audience. It is filled with irrelevant footnotes hamfistedly shoved in covering plays from the anti playbook like worthiness interviews. There is a mention of the mall that cost “X” (someone forgot to proofread and fill that in later). There is a quoted anecdote about President Packer showing up wanting to know what was going on since he was next in line and he was turned away since only the First Presidency was allowed to know about what was going on. How did a mid-level guy like the whistleblower know what was said to President Packer and how did he get an exact quote? The whole thing is riddled with appeal to emotion and ridicule. Out of context quotes from church leaders show up regularly and there are a lot of cutesy in-jokes from Church culture and hymns and the like. For example, it is suggested that “angels are silent notes taking” about supposed financial practices. I was amused by the call for congressional investigations with not so subtle hints about who should be called to testify. Then there is the references to mega churches and their excesses and the Church is referred to as a gigachurch. At one point the document says it is the only gigachurch (sorry to Catholics and Baptist’s and all the other wannabes who did not make the cut). Later it calls for legislation specifically to target gigachurches where they seem to have forgotten there is only one.

It is also riddled with grammatical errors. I did like one portion where three major changes to tithing practices are listed. The first one is in the early church, the second in the 1970s, and the last is right after World War 2 and the verbiage conveys that they are being presented sequentially. After all who can forget when President Ronald Reagan, Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, and President Mikhail Gorbachev teamed up to form the Allied powers against the threat of the Axis?

Stripped of irrelevancies it should have been five to ten pages at most. Of course that would not serve because that would not fill the real role of using it as propaganda. Either that or the writer is an idiot and actually thought the IRS cares about worthiness interviews and LDS Second Coming eschatology and how it can be mocked as the equivalent of the return of Lord Xenu (despite there being no such doctrine even in Scientology).

[The Nehor]

2 hours ago, Bernard Gui said:

And a member can request reimbursement from the ward budget for out-of-pocket expenses.

 Yeah, if they are approved. I am thinking of a guy in my parent’s ward who hired a couple of limos for all the Youth for Mormon Prom without talking to anyone. He did not ask for reimbursement and I am betting he would have been denied if he had asked.

[pogi]

37 minutes ago, rockpond said:

Where do you claim that Nielsen claims the funds originated?  Because in the Infants on Thrones interview he states that it is a portion of tithes and offerings. 

From Helix:

Quote

 

The allegations are two-fold:

1) The first allegation is that an auxiliary non-profit 501(c)(3) unit cannot be used solely to invest, even if the overall parent 501(c)(3), the church, spends far more money on non-profit expenses. A 501(c)(3) auxiliary unit of the church (Ensign) allegedly annually invests 1/7th of church tithing income ($1 billion), while the other 6/7th is spent on church functions. Further, Ensign is alleged to not have spent any investment on charity in 22 years.

• The source of the $1B in tithing is a single PowerPoint slide, which doesn't call it tithing, but rather money "granted to [Ensign] on an annual basis" (page 43).
• It further doesn't state whether some or all of this $1B came from non-profit or for-profit sources.
• The source for $7B in annual tithing is a second-hand recollection of someone else's guess (page 20).
• The Washington Post notes no evidence was provided for the claim of $0 spent on charity from Ensign.

2) The second allegation is that the same 501(c)(3) auxiliary unit used non-profit money fraudulently to backstop two for-profit church units.

• A single summary PowerPoint slide (page 43) is given to support these claims, specifically that the investment fund can be used to backstop taxable entities.
• However, no evidence was given that these payments were done fraudulently.
• No evidence was given regarding if or how two alleged backstop payments were reported to the IRS and/or taxed, or whether the funds came from acceptable sources.

Further, the critic also alleges the church has $100 billion in accumulated wealth.

• This $100B value is fully estimated and no evidence beyond speculation is given to support these claims.

----

The evidence is scant.  Really scant.  He hinges everything on a single PowerPoint slide, and he makes big assumptions from it. 

 

Notice the first 2 bullet points under part 1.

[Calm]

4 hours ago, rockpond said:

Church is purchasing material goods

I was thinking in the past members have often donated during disasters food, blankets, etc. which were taken to a central area and then sent out in my understanding. So donations like that would be differently recorded perhaps than money donations received and then shared. Now they usually ask for money donations, don't they?  Though they don't refuse other types of donation (too lazy to look up recent requests outside the Giving Machines).

[MiserereNobis]

1 hour ago, The Nehor said:

Then there is the references to mega churches and their excesses and the Church is referred to as a gigachurch. At one point the document says it is the only gigachurch (sorry to Catholics and Baptist’s and all the other wannabes who did not make the cut)

Now this offends me. I mean, we Catholics are the harlot of Babylon after all! And if the riches of Rome don't make us #1 on the list, well dang.

On the other hand, we've got the right idea in that we have our own bank in our own country where our leader is the supreme monarch. It's hard for us to break our own laws that way  

(Yes, tongue in cheek with the Vatican Bank scandals clearly on my mind. I'm glad Pope Francis has been cleaning house there)

[california boy]

5 hours ago, Calm said:

When it is about a rainy day/emergency fund, there is a difference between how much the local soccer club needs and a 15 million member (5 million likely active) global organization needs.  Pogi is simply suggesting we look at the amount in the correct context before making a judgment.

Maybe you could give me an example where the church would need 100billion for Some unforsen emergency so I could better understand where you are coming from

[MiserereNobis]

I think this public disclosure is great for the future job prospects of all those portfolio managers at Ensign Peaks (is the name of the entity some LDS reference?). Who wouldn't want to hire these guys? I wonder how many are BYU grads...

[Duncan]

4 minutes ago, MiserereNobis said:

I think this public disclosure is great for the future job prospects of all those portfolio managers at Ensign Peaks (is the name of the entity some LDS reference?). Who wouldn't want to hire these guys? I wonder how many are BYU grads...

you'd get to know all these secrets, that apparently not even a senior member of the Twelve

[Hamba Tuhan]

6 minutes ago, MiserereNobis said:

I think this public disclosure is great for the future job prospects of all those portfolio managers at Ensign Peaks.

Part of me is wondering if someone will seek to enforce the NDA that has no doubt been breached. I can understand why Church leaders wouldn't, but I secretly hope they might ...

[sunstoned]

15 minutes ago, MiserereNobis said:

Now this offends me. I mean, we Catholics are the harlot of Babylon after all! And if the riches of Rome don't make us #1 on the list, well dang.

On the other hand, we've got the right idea in that we have our own bank in our own country where our leader is the supreme monarch. It's hard for us to break our own laws that way  

(Yes, tongue in cheek with the Vatican Bank scandals clearly on my mind. I'm glad Pope Francis has been cleaning house there)

One thing that I have always respected about the Catholic church is all of the charities and charitable work that it financed and supported.  Many members of the Catholic faith have exhibited true love of god and their fellow men. I wish more churches followed the example set by the Catholic church.  I wish we had someone like mother Teresa that we could point to and say, look there is an example of what our faith can produce. Selfless love. Instead, we get lawyers, and business men, who's callings are apparently to maximize profits. 

[Scott Lloyd]

7 minutes ago, MiserereNobis said:

I think this public disclosure is great for the future job prospects of all those portfolio managers at Ensign Peaks (is the name of the entity some LDS reference?). Who wouldn't want to hire these guys? I wonder how many are BYU grads...

Ensign Peak is a conical shaped mountain formation north of the Salt Lake City business district and the Utah State Capitol. It can be hiked in about 20 minutes if you’re healthy and fit. 
 

The history is that three days after Brigham Young and the pioneers entered the Salt Lake Valley, he and a group of associates climbed up to it and from there surveyed the valley below, deciding among other things where to locate a new temple. 
 

Reportedly, Brigham Young had seen the peak in vision while the pioneers were crossing the plains. He saw it so clearly that he immediately recognized it when they arrived. 
 

The story goes that one of them suggested it would be a good place to raise “an ensign to the nations” (an allusion to a prophecy in Isaiah), whereupon one of them took from his pocket a yellow bandanna, tied it to a cane and waved the makeshift “ensign.”
 

The location was named Ensign Peak in remembrance of the occasion. 
 

In recent times, monuments, a park and a nature trail have been constructed leading up to the peak. 
 

If you come to Salt Lake sometime and I’m available and well, I’ll take you hiking up to Ensign Peak. Then, we’ll come down and have lunch at the Nauvoo Cafe in the Joseph Smith Memorial Building (the former Hotel Utah). 

[Tacenda]

4 hours ago, Teancum said:

I have to comment on the fast offering comments. There is evidence. As a bishop I knew exactly how much we took in and how much went out. Our ward typically had about $30k of FO contributions and paid out $45k per year. So we ran a deficit. We were encouraged by our stake president to try to at least break even. But if we could not we were not chastised. For the stake if wards had a deficit the stake could kick in if it had a surplus.  If not the Church headquarters would kick in. So while this is not info on the whole church I have wondered how much FO assitance goes out per year.  I think it is at least $500 million. How much the church headquarters pitches in I do not know. I bet it is a lot. And it is one of the best welfare programs on the planet.  And this is from a now disaffected skeptic.

Nice to know!!