Church fined by SEC

[ttribe]

1 hour ago, Stormin' Mormon said:

You're right that I can't defend outright perjury. But your perjury accusation rests on two "ifs." There's a lot of imaginary wrong-doing that can be insinuated with a pair of "ifs."

 

Todd Budge openly admitted that the form was intentionally filled out incorrectly. He falls back on the "it doesn't apply to us" statement, but there is no apparent justification for that statement. EPA is a fund required to report on Form 990 and, as such, is required to comply with ALL of its requirements. Do you have anything to support Budge's position?

[bluebell]

14 minutes ago, ttribe said:

Todd Budge openly admitted that the form was intentionally filled out incorrectly. He falls back on the "it doesn't apply to us" statement, but there is no apparent justification for that statement. EPA is a fund required to report on Form 990 and, as such, is required to comply with ALL of its requirements. Do you have anything to support Budge's position?

Filling out a form intentionally wrong, and not filling it out because you don't believe it applies to you, seems to be two contradictory actions.  If you sincerely don't believe that it applies to you then doesn't that mean, by default, that you can't also "intentionally fill it out wrong"?

I'm not arguing with what you are saying, just asking for clarification because it doesn't make sense to me.

[ttribe]

10 minutes ago, bluebell said:

Filling out a form intentionally wrong, and not filling it out because you don't believe it applies to you, seems to be two contradictory actions.  If you sincerely don't believe that it applies to you then doesn't that mean, by default, that you can't also "intentionally fill it out wrong"?

I'm not arguing with what you are saying, just asking for clarification because it doesn't make sense to me.

I'd guess you'd have to ask Todd Budge. The form clearly has the number "1,000,000" in the box, but when asked about it, he says "we filled it out that way because we don't think it applies to us" (paraphrased). In the same breath he says "anyone familiar with the Church would know its assets exceed $1 million." He also admits it isn't accurate and wasn't intended to be accurate.

 

Quote

Todd Budge, another member of the presiding bishopric, said anyone familiar with the church would know its assets exceeded $1 million. “It wasn’t an accurate answer. It wasn’t meant to be an accurate answer,” said Budge, a 63-year-old former banking and private-equity executive. “It was simply meant to communicate that we do not feel that we’re obligated to fill in that box.”

 

Edited July 6, 2023 by ttribe

[LoudmouthMormon]

34 minutes ago, ttribe said:

Todd Budge openly admitted that the form was intentionally filled out incorrectly. He falls back on the "it doesn't apply to us" statement, but there is no apparent justification for that statement. EPA is a fund required to report on Form 990 and, as such, is required to comply with ALL of its requirements. Do you have anything to support Budge's position?

Yeah, I'm standing by my original comments on the issue back in March.

Quote

“Willfully committing crime“. I’d like to address that.
 

I once did a season at a tax office.  Looking for a possible retirement gig - I know a few people who travel around in their RV, stop in some random state and work a season, then move on.   Some things I learned:

- The tax code should never be confused for some sort of moral, just, or right thing.  It's a schizophrenic and flawed battle ground for politicians, strewn with discarded hulks of partially hollowed-out reforms, changes, and additions from a century of tinkering for the purpose of winning elections.  Much of it makes absolutely no sense, and flat out contradicts other areas.  It's an indecipherable mishmash of corporate welfare, individual/family welfare, assaults on corporations, and assaults on individuals and families.

- Whatever tinkering congress did the year before (or during the tax season) often makes conflicting and contradictory laws with no clear answer on how to pay correct taxes.  The code is so complex, so in conflict with itself, that the IRS routinely sues itself, in order to answer questions on taxation.  

- Tax law, tax lawyers, tax cases, and tax rulings should also never be confused for some sort of moral, just, or right thing.  It's a necessary thing so the nation's tax preparers can get some sort of actual answer on what the crap to do with various entities tax situations.

- I was doing taxes the year Obamacare "got teeth", and the mandate that forced people to have insurance or pay a fine was in play.  I applied penalties two or three times - every time it was to some poor schmoe or lower class family that fell into a 'magic area' of not poor enough to pay zero taxes, but not well-enough employed to have employer-provided healthcare.   One guy and I spent about 45 minutes going over the massive list of exceptions to see how much I could reduce his obamacare penalty.  I managed to get him credit for two months he was behind bars.  

No really - if someone I really hated was arrested tomorrow for tax fraud, I'd say "hold up now, did he actually do anything wrong though?"

IMO, after talking with @Analytics, it seems like the SEC is probably a little better than the tax code.  But hardly a lot better.

When you put all the human failings on a scale from least to most horrible, "Intentionally filling out Form 990 wrong" sort of falls on the "forgot to feed the cat" end of the scale. 

Caussé's statement on the matter pretty much sums up my take on things.  “We recognize mistakes, and we regret mistakes,” he said. The church says cash from Ensign Peak helps fund its religious, charitable and educational activities. “There is no other purpose. Nobody is getting rich,” Caussé said. “Everything goes to these.”

66 friggin' pages in this thread, all the years of dirt finding, and the absolute level best anyone can come up with is "the church saves/invests it's money" and "the church intentionally filled out a tax form wrong".  What an absolute laugh.  Desperation and envy.  Mountains out of molehills.  Please feel free to beat your head against this issue for another 65 pages. Tomorrow I'm paying my tithing.

Edited July 6, 2023 by LoudmouthMormon

[ttribe]

1 minute ago, LoudmouthMormon said:

Yeah, I'm standing by my original comments on the issue back in March.

 

When you put all the human failings on a scale from least to most horrible "Intentionally filling out Form 990 wrong" sort of falls on the "forgot to feed the cat" end of the scale. 

Caussé's statement on the matter pretty much sums up my take on things.  “We recognize mistakes, and we regret mistakes,” he said. The church says cash from Ensign Peak helps fund its religious, charitable and educational activities. “There is no other purpose. Nobody is getting rich,” Caussé said. “Everything goes to these.”

66 friggin' pages in this thread, all the years of dirt finding, and the absolute level best anyone can come up with is "the church saves/invests it's money" and "the church intentionally filled out a tax form wrong".  What an absolute laugh.  Desperation and envy.  Mountains out of molehills.  Please feel free to beat your head against this issue for another 65 pages. Tomorrow I'm paying my tithing.

Yeah...this is a little different than you are portraying the matter, but if it still works for you, go for it. Not everyone is you and you are not like everyone.

[bluebell]

38 minutes ago, ttribe said:

I'd guess you'd have to ask Todd Budge. The form clearly has the number "1,000,000" in the box, but when asked about it, he says "we filled it out that way because we don't think it applies to us" (paraphrased). In the same breath he says "anyone familiar with the Church would know its assets exceed $1 million." He also admits it isn't accurate and wasn't intended to be accurate.

 

 

Ok, that makes more sense. Thanks for the added info.

It sounds like he was saying that they intentionally filled it out wrong in a way that--according to him--officials would obviously know was not meant to represent the actual amount but was a placeholder number because--again according to him--it wasn't information they were required to give.

When you said that they had admitted to intentionally filling it out wrong I assumed that you meant that he admitted that they were intentionally trying to deceive the officials.  This explanation clarifies how he intentionally put down the wrong number but (according to him) did so in a way that was not meant to be deceptive and was because they didn't think providing that information was necessary.

[ttribe]

6 minutes ago, bluebell said:

Ok, that makes more sense. Thanks for the added info.

It sounds like he was saying that they intentionally filled it out wrong in a way that--according to him--officials would obviously know was not meant to represent the actual amount but was a placeholder number because--again according to him--it wasn't information they were required to give.

When you said that they had admitted to intentionally filling it out wrong I assumed that you meant that he admitted that they were intentionally trying to deceive the officials.  This explanation clarifies how he intentionally put down the wrong number but (according to him) did so in a way that was not meant to be deceptive and was because they didn't think providing that information was necessary.

Yours is a more generous reading of their actions than mine. From where I stand, this looks like arrogance and defiance. The rules are clear. I'm aware of no loophole for EPA simply because it is tied to the Church.

If I'm ever audited by the IRS, perhaps I'll use the "it doesn't apply to me" defense and see how far that goes.

For the record, nothing has come of this, and likely never will. As I've posted in other threads, the IRS simply has no appetite for going after churches right now. They got their nose bloodied by Scientology and the current political atmosphere simply wouldn't tolerate such an investigation.

 

[bluebell]

9 minutes ago, ttribe said:

Yours is a more generous reading of their actions than mine. From where I stand, this looks like arrogance and defiance. The rules are clear. I'm aware of no loophole for EPA simply because it is tied to the Church.

If I'm ever audited by the IRS, perhaps I'll use the "it doesn't apply to me" defense and see how far that goes.

For the record, nothing has come of this, and likely never will. As I've posted in other threads, the IRS simply has no appetite for going after churches right now. They got their nose bloodied by Scientology and the current political atmosphere simply wouldn't tolerate such an investigation.

 

I think my more generous reading comes from him saying that the officials would obviously know the $1,000,000 was not correct.  If you were trying to decieve, putting down a number the official is going to know right away is wrong doesn't make a lot of sense.

As to the bold, if it makes you feel better it obviously didn't go far for the church because they ended up paying a fine.    

[ttribe]

2 minutes ago, bluebell said:

I think my more generous reading comes from him saying that the officials would obviously know the $1,000,000 was not correct.  If you were trying to decieve, putting down a number the official is going to know right away is wrong doesn't make a lot of sense.

As to the bold, if it makes you feel better it obviously didn't go far for the church because they ended up paying a fine.    

The fine they paid was to the SEC and that was a different matter than the one highlighted in last week's WSJ article and which we are now discussing. To me, this is a pattern of openly defying two regulatory agencies - the IRS and the SEC.

[LoudmouthMormon]

FWIW, for like 5-6 years now, when doing my family's taxes, I have willfully, defiantly, arrogantly, filled out one of the lines intentionally wrong, because I don't think it applies to us.  Here is a screen grab of the deceit from page 2 of my form 1040: 

 

[ttribe]

6 minutes ago, LoudmouthMormon said:

FWIW, for like 5-6 years now, when doing my family's taxes, I have willfully, defiantly, arrogantly, filled out one of the lines intentionally wrong, because I don't think it applies to us.  Here is a screen grab of the deceit from page 2 of my form 1040: 

 

Not even in the same ballpark, but thanks for your contribution.

[Pyreaux]

I thought they created multiple corporations to intentionally and legally misreport their revenue to the general public, everything all would have been good but the EPA had failed to relinquish control over the companies and so unintentionally filed the wrong version of the correct form, they all honestly thought they met the requirements for that form, but didn't. The settlement was over misfiling, and they concluded there was no wrongdoing or attempt at wrongdoing.

Again, the maneuver was to conceal information from the General Public, it had no financial benefit, no attempt to defraud the SEC or the IRS, rather the SEC and IRS already knew all the correct information all along and that's likely why the IRS isn't doing anything.

 

[ttribe]

4 minutes ago, Pyreaux said:

I thought they created multiple corporations to intentionally and legally misreport their revenue to the general public, everything all would have been good but the EPA had failed to relinquish control over the companies and so unintentionally filed the wrong version of the correct form, they all honestly thought they met the requirements for that form, but didn't. The settlement was over misfiling, and they concluded there was no wrongdoing or attempt at wrongdoing.

Again, the maneuver was to conceal information from the General Public, it had no financial benefit, no attempt to defraud the SEC or the IRS, rather the SEC and IRS already knew all the correct information all along and that's likely why the IRS isn't doing anything.

 

These are completely different documents and issues.

The SEC matter resulted in a fine.

These are annual Form 990s which are required to be filed with the IRS.

[Calm]

Maybe this thread should be devoted to the SEC issue and a new one created for discussing the 2007 tax form entry of “$1,000,000” in assets and later ones of “over $1,000,000” to avoid confusion on what is being discussed. 

[ttribe]

1 minute ago, Calm said:

Maybe this thread should be devoted to the SEC issue and a new one created for discussing the 2007 tax form entry of “$1,000,000” in assets and later ones of “over $1,000,000” to avoid confusion on what is being discussed. 

Well...maybe someone who is a little less "obsessed" (allegedly) with the Church's finances than me, might feel comfortable doing that.

[Pyreaux]

1 hour ago, ttribe said:

These are completely different documents and issues.

The SEC matter resulted in a fine.

These are annual Form 990s which are required to be filed with the IRS.

Ah, sorry, I've not been following this thread closely nor the news of that. Thank you.

Edited July 7, 2023 by Pyreaux

[Teancum]

4 hours ago, LoudmouthMormon said:

Yeah, I'm standing by my original comments on the issue back in March.

IMO, after talking with @Analytics, it seems like the SEC is probably a little better than the tax code.  But hardly a lot better.

When you put all the human failings on a scale from least to most horrible, "Intentionally filling out Form 990 wrong" sort of falls on the "forgot to feed the cat" end of the scale. 

Caussé's statement on the matter pretty much sums up my take on things.  “We recognize mistakes, and we regret mistakes,” he said. The church says cash from Ensign Peak helps fund its religious, charitable and educational activities. “There is no other purpose. Nobody is getting rich,” Caussé said. “Everything goes to these.”

66 friggin' pages in this thread, all the years of dirt finding, and the absolute level best anyone can come up with is "the church saves/invests it's money" and "the church intentionally filled out a tax form wrong".  What an absolute laugh.  Desperation and envy.  Mountains out of molehills.  Please feel free to beat your head against this issue for another 65 pages. Tomorrow I'm paying my tithing.

I have been a tax law professional for 35 years  So pardon me if find your rather assessment of the Internal Revenue Code rather ludicrous and shallow.  But hey after one tax season as a ta preparar you are an expert right?  Yes tax law is difficult.  Yes tax law is voluminous.  One of the reasons I made a career with a fair sized CPA firm is because I wanted to focus my efforts n areas of tax law I was interested in and rely on others at my firm to do the same.  It has worked out well.  Tax law is nothing like you describe it but yes, like most laws we get there is wrangling, agendas, attempts at times to use tax law to promote certain things (like charitable giving, donations to churches, having children and so on.  Yes at times various industries lobby for tax breaks (like oil, als now clean energy, etc) but again this is not any different than how most legislation passes.  As for moral, well it is just law.  It is stool to raise revenue. But the law can be enforced.  You may not have a problem with whoever was responsible for the form falsifying it but that seems odd really.  I doubt you would be so generous to others.  I you ever have a tax audit I hope you the "well I did not report that because I just did not think it really applied to me."  See how far that gets you.  By the way I recall a talk many years ago by Elder Wirthlin on honesty.  He used cheating on a tax return as an example of not being honest in your dealings with your fellow men.  Did the church stol emphasizing such a thing since I have not been attending? 

[Teancum]

6 hours ago, Stormin' Mormon said:

You're right that I can't defend outright perjury. But your perjury accusation rests on two "ifs." There's a lot of imaginary wrong-doing that can be insinuated with a pair of "ifs."

 

Really?  It is quite simple.  $1,000,000 was reported in assets when the amount was very much larger than that.  What ifs are there?

[Stormin' Mormon]

13 hours ago, Teancum said:

If EPA was required to file a Form 990 and they falsified it they are guilty of perjury.  

If #1: If EPA was required to file a 990

If #2: If they falsified the form

I haven't read up on this issue and was going by your description of it, which based on the wording above, came across as a  speculative add-on to the SEC discussion. 

I thought the SEC issue to be a tempest in a teapot, and adding speculative allegations on top of it would have been silly. But apparently this is a new issue piggy-backing on the old thread? I agree with Calm that making a new thread would have avoided some confusion and ambiguity.

I'm on vacation, out of the loop, so I may have some reading up to do when I return to civilization.

 

[LoudmouthMormon]

1 hour ago, Teancum said:

You may not have a problem with whoever was responsible for the form falsifying it but that seems odd really.  I doubt you would be so generous to others. 

I never said I don't have a problem with it.  I said "When you put all the human failings on a scale from least to most horrible, "Intentionally filling out Form 990 wrong" sort of falls on the "forgot to feed the cat" end of the scale."  I said after all the effort to pin something on the church, this is all folks have managed to come up with.  I said Caussé's statement on the matter sums up my take on things.  “We recognize mistakes, and we regret mistakes.”  That's sufficient problem resolution for me.  His reminder that nobody is getting rich from church donations strikes home with me.   The same cannot be said for just about any other human or organization in hot water over taxes.

I get the desire to think poorly about and get all judgey at folks who don't have as big a problem about this issue as you do.  If it helps, I once forgot to feed my cat.

 

Quote

I you ever have a tax audit I hope you the "well I did not report that because I just did not think it really applied to me."  See how far that gets you. 

I've had my taxes professionally prepared for a while now, partly because they'll do all the work in the unlikely event of an audit.  (Yes, those preparers are the one who came up with "Home Goddess".)   

 

Anyway, Imma still pay my tithing tomorrow.  I can hear y'alls teeth gnashing from here.

Edited July 7, 2023 by LoudmouthMormon

[Calm]

1 hour ago, Teancum said:

You may not have a problem with whoever was responsible for the form falsifying it but that seems odd really.

I think it is possible it wasn’t falsifying, but more a declaration that the Church had met the minimum necessary amount of assets to move into a category where additional assets made no difference to paying and therefore logically didn’t need to be reported for that purpose, as the Church would pay the same whether they had &1,000,000 or $100,000,000.  It is the only way the change to “over $1,000,000” and the $1,000,000 makes sense to me.  The probability of any organization having exactly $1,000,000 in assets is too low I am guessing to make that a reasonable input in any of itself.  Plus I don’t see even the most arrogant church official thinking they can just decide for themselves whether or not the law applies to them, I don’t see a sovereign citizen type getting that high up before running into trouble.  However, $1,000,000 makes for a very reasonable boundary marker, so perhaps Budge or whoever filled out the forms understood the instructions to mean since they were paying the maximum amount (a percentage of assets valued up to $1,000,000), as long as they declared they maxed out, that was sufficient. I haven’t read the WP article itself, just quotes, so it’s hard to tell if this could be applicable or not (,and I have no knowledge of organizational taxes to know if reasonable or not as well.

While I think they deserve any penalty that is given out because ignorance is not a defense for breaking the law (we paid our fines without complaining when we found out that we should have filed a US tax return even though we had no “US income” the first few years we were in Canada), I would like to know more about why he thought it didn’t apply before choosing what I am going to judge his actions as….misreading/mishearing instructions like we had, not bothering to check at all, trying to avoid paying additional taxes, or whatever.

[Calm]

I may have missed this part of the WSJ discussion the last few days….my apologies if this is a repeat.

Are people okay with the explanation provided for at least some of the Ensign Peak Advisors’ reserve in the WSJ?  The reserve is intended to make it possible to build a temple whenever and wherever it is decided one is needed and they expect to build hundreds more?

Quote

…at the time, church officials called the holdings a rainy-day account.
They now say the money also has provided a financial foundation that gives the Mormon Church confidence to construct more than 100 temples, from Cape Verde to Guam, a series of stone-clad monuments exhibiting the church’s vast and expanding wealth….

“We have a vision of the church that is—can I use the word grandiose?” said Gérald Caussé, the church’s presiding bishop, in an interview. “Because we believe the gospel has to be taken to all the world. And so we see the size of the church multiple times what it is now, in the future.”

Quote

The church’s leaders say they expect hundreds more after those. Nine of the 15 new locations announced this year are outside the U.S. It is already building its first temples in Ivory Coast, Cambodia and Papua New Guinea.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/mormon-church-temple-spending-spree-utah-e167977f

They have announced 133 new temples in 5 years, making that more than 25 new temples a year to pay for.  If one temple costs $70 millionish, 25 could cost 2 billionish….

My guess is it’s a lot more expensive to build in some areas, not as expensive in others (though maybe that is labor costs rather than materials if much of the material is import).

Edited July 7, 2023 by Calm

[LoudmouthMormon]

Cool paredo chart showing the church's exponential growth in temple building:

 

(Same chart, in the millennial dialect:)

[Teancum]

13 hours ago, Stormin' Mormon said:

If #1: If EPA was required to file a 990

Apparently they were required to file it. 

13 hours ago, Stormin' Mormon said:

If #2: If they falsified the form

It was admitted that they put in incorrect number for their assets.

 

13 hours ago, Stormin' Mormon said:

I haven't read up on this issue and was going by your description of it, which based on the wording above, came across as a  speculative add-on to the SEC discussion. 

@ttribebrought this up based on a WSJ article.

13 hours ago, Stormin' Mormon said:

I thought the SEC issue to be a tempest in a teapot, and adding speculative allegations on top of it would have been silly. But apparently this is a new issue piggy-backing on the old thread? I agree with Calm that making a new thread would have avoided some confusion and ambiguity.

I'm on vacation, out of the loop, so I may have some reading up to do when I return to civilization.

 

I have no desire to start a new thread on it.  Someone else can if they wish.

[Teancum]

13 hours ago, LoudmouthMormon said:

I never said I don't have a problem with it.  I said "When you put all the human failings on a scale from least to most horrible, "Intentionally filling out Form 990 wrong" sort of falls on the "forgot to feed the cat" end of the scale."  I said after all the effort to pin something on the church, this is all folks have managed to come up with.  I said Caussé's statement on the matter sums up my take on things.  “We recognize mistakes, and we regret mistakes.”  That's sufficient problem resolution for me.  His reminder that nobody is getting rich from church donations strikes home with me.   The same cannot be said for just about any other human or organization in hot water over taxes.

Ok I can agree with that.  I am not trying to pin anything on the church.  But when we are told to be honest and then we find leader not being honest it does smack of hypocrisy.

 

13 hours ago, LoudmouthMormon said:

I get the desire to think poorly about and get all judgey at folks who don't have as big a problem about this issue as you do.  If it helps, I once forgot to feed my cat.

As a CPA and tax professional perhaps I take misrepresentations on tax forms more egregious than others.  I won't falsify a tax return.  I would not have signed that Form 990 as a preparer. I am surprise Deloitte did.  And if we take a position that we feel is aggressive or uncertain we disclose it on a form IRS has for such things and attach it to the tax return.

 

 

13 hours ago, LoudmouthMormon said:

 

I've had my taxes professionally prepared for a while now, partly because they'll do all the work in the unlikely event of an audit.  (Yes, those preparers are the one who came up with "Home Goddess".) 

That is pretty funny.

13 hours ago, LoudmouthMormon said:

 

 

 

Anyway, Imma still pay my tithing tomorrow.  I can hear y'alls teeth gnashing from here.

No gnashing it all. Pay away. It is your money. I pay my charitable funds to organizations that seem more concerned about relieving human suffering.