60 Minutes Australia: "Cooking the Book of Mormon"

[Teancum]

6 hours ago, smac97 said:

"This allowed Australian donations to be used for overseas aid projects that satisfy Australia charities and tax rules."

I figured as much.

Teancum, does this affect your assessment at all ("Charities in Australia are supposed to use their funds primar{ily} in Australia for charitable purposes...")?

Thanks,

-Smac

I stand corrected.

[JustAnAustralian]

1 hour ago, Teancum said:

Perhaps the tax law changed on this.

I'm not sure why it was 75% previously (or which groups the 75% applied to). But currently (since around 2014 I guess) "tithing" in the traditional sense of giving money to your church, is not normally deductable. I assume fast offering would be.

Edited November 3, 2022 by JustAnAustralian

[Calm]

2 hours ago, Teancum said:

Didn't you just provide your own CFR?   

It does not say it has to be spent primarily in Australia, that is what I was CFRing.  My quotes show the opposite in fact.

[Calm]

2 hours ago, Teancum said:

Perhaps the tax law changed on this. I work with a lot of Australians who have immigrated to the US or who are still in Australia but have ties to the US and have US tax issues.  I am a bit familiar with Australia tax law but certainly not an expert.  Many of the Australians I work with are part of a small religious sect called The Brethren, or The Exclusive Brethren.  They donate a lot to their religious organization.  As I have worked with them most have an Australian discretionary trust that they wrap around their businesses.  They do this for a variety of tax planning reasons and among their purpose is the trust can take a deduction for contributions to their religious organization when they or their business cannot. That said, as notes there may have been a change to the law as you note above.

Didn't you just provide your own CFR?   Anyways see SMACs response to me.  

It was conjecture so I cannot provide a CFR.

Do you withdraw your conjecture now you have read at least the quotes from the documents on the government’s site, if not the documents itself that state the money that gets donated to the Trust, that then gets transferred to LDSCA (an Australian and not an international organization run by SL) gets paid to the developing relief funds, not transferred yet again to Salt Lake?

Edited November 3, 2022 by Calm

[Calm]

2 hours ago, Teancum said:

Are they now?  Feel free to refute them.  

Are you not reading my posts?  And Hamba and JustanAustralian’s?  You were right about the charity having to be run by Australians in Australia, but what else were you right on or is still open to question?

Edited November 3, 2022 by Calm

[Teancum]

FYI, I feel like I jumped into this topic not as well informed as I should have been. Looking further into this I think it is a rather thinly veiled sensational piece.  If the Australia tax laws allow for the Church to do what it did I see no issue,  And as SMAC said, why would the church set up legal structured then do things to thwart it.  We can argue whether or not the tax laws are good or bad.  But that is not the point. And as a tax advisor professionally I use the tax law to save my client tax $$ all the time.  So, I am backtracking on previous posts here and really feel this is not an issue.

[Teancum]

14 hours ago, Calm said:

Do you withdraw your conjecture now you have read at least the quotes from the documents on the government’s site, if not the documents itself that state the money that gets donated to the Trust, that then gets transferred to LDSCA (an Australian and not an international organization run by SL) gets paid to the developing relief funds, not transferred yet again to Salt Lake?

Yep.  See my most recent post. I can admit when I an wrong.

[Calm]

6 hours ago, Teancum said:

Yep.  See my most recent post. I can admit when I an wrong.

Thank you…sometimes I can get a little pushy about something I see as established facts and this is one of those times (though it is just the process I am obsessing about, judgments about intent and morality are too subjective for me to see them as something I can change people’s minds about).

Edited November 3, 2022 by Calm

[Calm]

https://www.fairlatterdaysaints.org/blog/2022/11/04/defamation-down-under-responding-to-the-aussie-allegations

[Harry T. Clark]

On 11/1/2022 at 8:33 AM, ksfisher said:

So you'd like the church to pay more taxes than it is legally obligated to pay?

The optics ... we are supposedly looking for converts in Australia and the world, and surely you can see that being too aggressive in looking for tax advantages can backfire when it comes to potential converts and how we are viewed by them.  We should avoid the appearance of evil in this case?

Edited November 6, 2022 by Harry T. Clark

[Hamba Tuhan]

7 hours ago, Harry T. Clark said:

We should avoid the appearance of evil in this case?

The 'appearance of evil' is completely fabricated in this case.

This morning I spoke with a good mate in Australia. He said he watched the 60 Minutes segment on YouTube with his sister last night, and they both found it so ridiculous that they literally LOL-ed for most of it. He said he couldn't imagine any reasonably educated Australian taking it seriously. (He also noted that his father, a schoolteacher and former public servant, used to watch the program religiously but stopped about ten years ago because it had turned into 'trash TV'.)

Edited November 7, 2022 by Hamba Tuhan

[Stormin' Mormon]

8 hours ago, Harry T. Clark said:

The optics ... we are supposedly looking for converts in Australia and the world, and surely you can see that being too aggressive in looking for tax advantages can backfire when it comes to potential converts and how we are viewed by them.  We should avoid the appearance of evil in this case?

I for one would hesitate to donate to an organization that takes such little care for its fiduciary responsibilities. Tithing dollars are consecrated dollars, and are used for consecrated purposes. If the church does not use every legal means to prevent the use of consecrated dollars for non-consecrated purposes, it is breaking faith with the sacrifice of its memebers.

Perhaps treating the widow's mite in such a cavalier manner is the greater of two evils.

Edited to add: I would feel the same way about secular charities that don't take sufficient care to minimize the amount of their donated dollars from being used for purposes superfluous their core mission (taxes, excessive overhead, executive perks etc.)

Edited November 7, 2022 by Stormin' Mormon

[Calm]

5 hours ago, Stormin' Mormon said:

I for one would hesitate to donate to an organization that takes such little care for its fiduciary responsibilities. Tithing dollars are consecrated dollars, and are used for consecrated purposes. If the church does not use every legal means to prevent the use of consecrated dollars for non-consecrated purposes, it is breaking faith with the sacrifice of its memebers.

Perhaps treating the widow's mite in such a cavalier manner is the greater of two evils.

Edited to add: I would feel the same way about secular charities that don't take sufficient care to minimize the amount of their donated dollars from being used for purposes superfluous their core mission (taxes, excessive overhead, executive perks etc.)

But the issue in Australia is not the Church is avoiding taxes as far as I am aware, but that it is making it easy for its members to avoid it. 
 

I assume they assume the Church does this so members will still pay as much tithing, so the Church allegedly benefits (since it all goes to the developing countries’ relief funds, there may be a PR benefit, but not apparently a financial one).

Edited November 7, 2022 by Calm

[Harry T. Clark]

14 hours ago, Hamba Tuhan said:

The 'appearance of evil' is completely fabricated in this case.

This morning I spoke with a good mate in Australia. He said he watched the 60 Minutes segment on YouTube with his sister last night, and they both found it so ridiculous that they literally LOL-ed for most of it. He said he couldn't imagine any reasonably educated Australian taking it seriously. (He also noted that his father, a schoolteacher and former public servant, used to watch the program religiously but stopped about ten years ago because it had turned into 'trash TV'.)

I guess that solves it.  Your good friend, Australian even, laughed out loud at the story and so the tax avoidance problem no longer has the bad optics a lot seem to think are there.  Never mind tithing is required to further church purposes.  Never mind that in Australia contributions to further church purposes aren't tax deductible and that our church had to create a supposed charitable entity to get around the problem and that it is supposedly run by two amateur members who undoubtedly get their orders from SLC, a seeming violation of the Australia control requirement.  One wonders if these two chose to give to an LGBTQ charity or same sex marriage charity if they would still be in their positions the next day.   Further, I guess 60 Minutes Australia is a joke in the eyes of a former school teacher and so there's that too.

Obviously, the bad optics comment was mistaken.  Carry on. 

[Harry T. Clark]

14 hours ago, Stormin' Mormon said:

I for one would hesitate to donate to an organization that takes such little care for its fiduciary responsibilities. Tithing dollars are consecrated dollars, and are used for consecrated purposes. If the church does not use every legal means to prevent the use of consecrated dollars for non-consecrated purposes, it is breaking faith with the sacrifice of its memebers.

Perhaps treating the widow's mite in such a cavalier manner is the greater of two evils.

Edited to add: I would feel the same way about secular charities that don't take sufficient care to minimize the amount of their donated dollars from being used for purposes superfluous their core mission (taxes, excessive overhead, executive perks etc.)

How far does one take the "every legal means" position when the law is fungible in these areas?  Where's the line?  When the light shines on it and bad press results?  I doubt non-members look at the aggressive tax avoidance and become converted as a result.  It seems it would be the opposite, but I could be wrong.

[Stormin' Mormon]

1 hour ago, Harry T. Clark said:

How far does one take the "every legal means" position when the law is fungible in these areas?  Where's the line?  When the light shines on it and bad press results?  I doubt non-members look at the aggressive tax avoidance and become converted as a result.  It seems it would be the opposite, but I could be wrong.

On the one hand, the Church has a moral duty to be good financial stewards of the funds that have been donated to it.

On the other hand, the Church has a moral duty to do...what exactly?  Surely it can't be the opposite of that first moral duty, to pay the maximum amount of taxes possible.  Perhaps it is a moral duty to pay its fair share of taxes.  But then we are left with the question of how to define "fair share."  Lucky for us, that's exactly what the democratic process and the resulting tax code is meant to do.  The tax code is society's consensus on what a fair share of taxes should be.  Which, then brings us back to the fact that if the Church is complying with the law they are complying with this second moral duty to pay its fair share of taxes.  

I repeat what I said earlier in this thread: there is no malum en se when it comes to taxes.  What is moral when it comes to taxes is by necessity defined by what is legal.  In the absence of law, murder is still bad, robbery is still bad, child abuse is still bad.  But in the absence of law, there isn't even a tax code to be complied with. The moral boundaries of tax compliance is coterminous with its legal boundaries. 

And I would be lax to ignore Calm's corrective caveat: the issue in Australia is NOT with the institutional church avoiding taxes, but rather with the institutional church structuring its international organization so as to allow individual Church members the legal ability to claim a 100% tax deduction on their tithing, rather than the 75% deduction that they would otherwise claim. A financial hit to the Australian government that is the equivalent to a quarter-mile of two lane roadway each year (hat tip to Hamba, who did those calcs back on page 5 of this discussion)

Edited November 7, 2022 by Stormin' Mormon

[smac97]

3 hours ago, Harry T. Clark said:

I guess that solves it.  Your good friend, Australian even, laughed out loud at the story and so the tax avoidance problem no longer has the bad optics a lot seem to think are there. 

"Bad optics" are going to be foisted on us no matter what we do.  So while the Church can and ought to avoid self-inflicted injuries, this is not one of those instances.

3 hours ago, Harry T. Clark said:

Never mind tithing is required to further church purposes. 

Not sure what you mean to say by this.  

3 hours ago, Harry T. Clark said:

Never mind that in Australia contributions to further church purposes aren't tax deductible

They are tax-deductible, actually.  Just not fully.

3 hours ago, Harry T. Clark said:

and that our church had to create a supposed charitable entity to get around the problem

"Supposed charitable entity"?  Are you suggesting that LDSCA is not what the Church represents it to be?

3 hours ago, Harry T. Clark said:

and that it is supposedly run by two amateur members

Have you read the CVs of the directors of LDSCA?  If you have, how can you characterize them as "amateur" (given their education, expertise and experience)?  And if you have not, how can you characterize them as "amateur" (given that you don't know anything about them)?

3 hours ago, Harry T. Clark said:

who undoubtedly get their orders from SLC,

Sources, please, for this "undoubted" - and yet controverted - assertion.

3 hours ago, Harry T. Clark said:

a seeming violation of the Australia control requirement. 

Actually, it appears to be neither an actual violation of Australian law, nor even a "seeming" violation.

3 hours ago, Harry T. Clark said:

One wonders if these two chose to give to an LGBTQ charity or same sex marriage charity if they would still be in their positions the next day.

It would be useful to know the stated purpose of LDSCA.

3 hours ago, Harry T. Clark said:

Further, I guess 60 Minutes Australia is a joke in the eyes of a former school teacher and so there's that too.

Obviously, the bad optics comment was mistaken.  Carry on. 

The sarcasm does not advance your argument.  It just makes you sound bitter and vindictive.

Thanks,

-Smac

Edited November 7, 2022 by smac97

[smac97]

On 11/6/2022 at 9:31 AM, Harry T. Clark said:

The optics ... we are supposedly looking for converts in Australia and the world, and surely you can see that being too aggressive in looking for tax advantages can backfire when it comes to potential converts and how we are viewed by them.  We should avoid the appearance of evil in this case?

Using lawful means to allow Australian Latter-day Saints to claim 100%, rather than 75%, of charitable donations as tax deductible is not reasonably characterized as either "evil" or as having the "appearance of evil."

Thanks,

-Smac

Edited November 7, 2022 by smac97

[smac97]

2 hours ago, Harry T. Clark said:

How far does one take the "every legal means" position when the law is fungible in these areas? 

I assume by "fungible" you mean "changeable?"  If so, what is your point?  Yes, laws change.  And when they do change, the Church reviews them and alters its actions accordingly.

What does this have to do with the story at hand?

2 hours ago, Harry T. Clark said:

Where's the line? 

The line between what?  Legal v. illegal?  Ethical v. unethical?  

2 hours ago, Harry T. Clark said:

When the light shines on it and bad press results?

How is that a reasonable benchmark?

2 hours ago, Harry T. Clark said:

I doubt non-members look at the aggressive tax avoidance and become converted as a result. 

There is nothing "aggressive" here.  In any event, nobody wants someone to join the Church based on whether or not tithed funds are 100% deductible rather than 75%.

2 hours ago, Harry T. Clark said:

It seems it would be the opposite, but I could be wrong.

Yes, I think you could be.

Your posts come across as navel-gazing.

Thanks,

-Smac

[Calm]

15 hours ago, Harry T. Clark said:

I guess that solves it.  Your good friend, Australian even, laughed out loud at the story and so the tax avoidance problem no longer has the bad optics a lot seem to think are there.  Never mind tithing is required to further church purposes.  Never mind that in Australia contributions to further church purposes aren't tax deductible and that our church had to create a supposed charitable entity to get around the problem and that it is supposedly run by two amateur members who undoubtedly get their orders from SLC, a seeming violation of the Australia control requirement.  One wonders if these two chose to give to an LGBTQ charity or same sex marriage charity if they would still be in their positions the next day.   Further, I guess 60 Minutes Australia is a joke in the eyes of a former school teacher and so there's that too.

Obviously, the bad optics comment was mistaken.  Carry on. 

It is so easy and fun to complain about something when you can’t be bothered to study it to get the facts right…or even just read the posts here that provide the correct info. 
 

smac:  “"Bad optics" are going to be foisted on us no matter what we do.”

As evidenced by the post by Clark containing falsehoods presented as facts above…

Clark:  ” One wonders if these two chose to give to an LGBTQ charity or same sex marriage charity if they would still be in their positions the next day.”

My guess is the Australian government would be arresting the three*** of them given the charity is required by law and by its own policy** to give only to developing countries’ relief funds. It would therefore be quite appropriate for the Church to relieve them of their positions given they would be unable to administer the charity by law. 

**https://www.acnc.gov.au/charity/charities/30f0a550-3aaf-e811-a963-000d3ad24077/profile
 

”Throughout the year 2021 we entered into collaborative arrangements and partnerships with other charitable organisations to fund 141 humanitarian projects that: - addressed food insecurity and nutrition; - provided access to clean water and hygiene and sanitation programs; - responded to refugees and IDPs needs in terms of shelter, food and non-food item needs - provided healthcare assistance and contributed to immunisation programs (polio, maternal and neonatal tetanus, and Covid 19) - provided emergency response to floods, hurricanes, earthquake, volcanic eruption and other calamities.”

***see list of directors in report at https://acncpubfilesprodstorage.blob.core.windows.net/public/30f0a550-3aaf-e811-a963-000d3ad24077-f22f51ad-ee3d-438e-a40c-115e9ab6eef2-Financial Report-fea4e329-4ef0-ec11-bb3d-002248944f2b-LDSCA_2021_Financial_Statements_-_FINAL.pdf

FYI, here is a list of developing countries (and therefore destinations for LDSCA’s funds) as given by the Australian Minister For Foreign Affairs and I can’t see Salt Lake on it anywhere:

https://www.dfat.gov.au/sites/default/files/list-developing-countries.pdf

Edited November 8, 2022 by Calm

[Calm]

I just came across this and am guessing this explains why the Australian government is saying nothing and hasn’t said anything about the LDS Charitable Trust Fund or LDS Charities Australia (beyond approving them as valid DGRs, meaning donations are 100% tax deductible).

https://www.foreignminister.gov.au/minister/penny-wong/media-release/calls-submissions-australias-new-international-development-policy

“The policy will deliver on Australia's commitment to work in partnership with our neighbours to achieve a peaceful, stable and prosperous Indo-Pacific.”

 

A major policy of the Australian government is to stabilize the Pacific area, in part by providing extensive aid to developing countries within it. 

And here comes the Church offering iirc $70 million (in the last reported year going off memory) in such aid without the government having to lift a finger or pay a penny. All it has to do is allow Australian Saints to use the tax law lawfully to take a full deduction of their tithing instead of 75%** (which would mean additional taxes on 25% of 10% or 2.5% of their gross, net, or otherwise titheable income as defined by the individual, thinking about $1.75 million, maybe ).  The government probably could probably care less whether the Saints call their tithing or the donate $70 million to developing countries to pay $1.75 million less in taxes club fund, as nothing changes for them whether or not the donation is seen as a religious duty or the equivalent of dropping pennies of a street artist as they walk by or it is a choice after taking the advice of the Saint’s tax accountant.  The government created this law in order to promote donating to developing counties and that is what is happening…$70 million a year according to the government site.

https://www.acnc.gov.au/charity/charities/357ae4a8-38af-e811-a962-000d3ad24a0d/documents/

Now the Church could keep all the money for itself and the Saints would just get a 75% deduction and the government would collect another $1.75 million, but that doesn’t hurt the Church at all, the Church doesn’t have to pay the taxes. But instead the Church found a way to benefit their members and benefit the government and benefit developing countries. Maybe it benefits the Church in some way beyond looking good for giving aid to developing countries. Don’t know, but seems unlikely to me given they wouldn’t be paying taxes on that money if sent to the US and it seems unlikely the Church in Australia would pay taxes on individual donations and not on money coming from SL to pay expenses (if that is how it works, that part is unknown I believe).

**adding Hamba’s tax calculations in case someone wants to see what it looks like at an individual level:

”A Saint who earns $41,860/year, tithes on gross, and has no other deductions (including fast offerings, etc.) would have a taxable income of $37,674 under the current arrangement of 100 per cent deductibility, resulting in an estimated tax of $3,700.06. This is a total tax rate of 8.84 per cent.

In a scenario where only 75 per cent of tithing is deductible (as was the case for a few years before the Church fixed this), a Saint who earns $41,860/year, tithes on gross, and has no other deductions (including fast offerings, etc.) would have a taxable income of $38,721, resulting in an estimated tax of $3,898.99. This is a total tax rate of 9.31 per cent.

In other words, for a person on a median income, being able to deduct 100 per cent of tithing (vs just 75 per cent) reduces her/his income tax contribution by $198.93 per year, reducing the person's tax burden by 0.47 per cent of gross income.”

Edited November 8, 2022 by Calm

[Calm]

One more thought tonight…

It was not like the Church was trying to pull a fast one on the Australian government by pretending to be a charity while really being a church. The Church called the funds “The L.D.S Charitable Trust Fund” and “L.D.S Charities Australia”.  The contact info email address of the funds ends in “@churchofjesuschrist” (likely LDS.org originally).  There is no way they could have made it more obvious what the source of the funds was…and yet they were approved from the beginning by the government and their approval has never been revoked. 

Edited November 8, 2022 by Calm

[Tacenda]

Hoping this is okay, haven't listened yet, but thought some of you would be interested to hear what these two Australians say. Sorry it has to be from the MS's website. Trying to be discrete because of the board's dislike of JD. But is this worth sharing if it means it could provide their side? And a great way to argue against as well, by way of arguing to the horse's mouth. https://Mormon*******.***/podcast/mormon-church-tax-scandal-in-australia/

[bluebell]

6 minutes ago, Tacenda said:

Hoping this is okay, haven't listened yet, but thought some of you would be interested to hear what these two Australians say. Sorry it has to be from the MS's website. Trying to be discrete because of the board's dislike of JD. But is this worth sharing if it means it could provide their side? And a great way to argue against as well, by way of arguing to the horse's mouth. https://Mormon*******.***/podcast/mormon-church-tax-scandal-in-australia/

Full disclosure, I'm not going to watch the podcast.  I generally dislike podcasts and rarely watch or listen to them.  My experience with the mormon stories ones is such that I'm not going to make an exception now.

But I do wonder, are these Australians adversarial to the church or are they believing members (or neutral nonmembers)?

[Tacenda]

16 minutes ago, bluebell said:

Full disclosure, I'm not going to watch the podcast.  I generally dislike podcasts and rarely watch or listen to them.  My experience with the mormon stories ones is such that I'm not going to make an exception now.

But I do wonder, are these Australians adversarial to the church or are they believing members (or neutral nonmembers)?

Sorry, I should have mentioned. Both are out of the church. And I should have said half the horses mouth, since we don't have reps from the church, that would be nice I guess. So I'm thinking it may be a waste of time and old news, myself. Maybe I shouldn't have even posted it. But it could give people a chance to dispel their comments. Or respond back the facts if they don't give facts. Oh, and I should have mentioned before your having to check it, it's Simon Southerton and Neville Rochow from the video in the topic. 

Edited November 8, 2022 by Tacenda