IRS "Whistleblower" David A. Nielsen to Appear on 60 Minutes

[Teancum]

23 hours ago, Benjamin McGuire said:

Without considering any of the other issues, the really cynical part of me is thinking that Nielsen is really hoping for his 10-30% finder's fee from the IRS ...

Money talks.  For Nielsen likely.  And for the LDS Church.

[smac97]

2 minutes ago, Teancum said:

Money talks.  For Nielsen likely.  And for the LDS Church.

Nobody in the Church is getting wealthy from it.

Nielsen, meanwhile, hopes to get rich from it.

I'm not saying that this is his sole motivation, but it's surely there.

He could, of course, put all this to rest by promising to either disclaim any reward or to donate it to charity.  I won't hold my breath.

Thanks,

-Smac

[helix]

2 hours ago, Analytics said:

Tithing is about another $7 billion a year in income.

That's a complete guess by someone who doesn't have access to the data. Take it with a grain of salt.

[JAHS]

37 minutes ago, smac97 said:

I don't think so.

Yes.  "In furtherance of its overall mission" being the operative phrasing.

We don't need to speculate.  Most reasonably-informed members understand and appreciate that the people who have access to and control over the Church's finances have put in place numerous safeguards, oversights, checks and balances, etc. so as to reduce the risk of misuse of such funds.  We have the Council on the Disposition of Tithes, the Budget Committee, the Appropriations Committee, the Church Budget Office, the Church Audit Committee, and more.  We get annual reports from the Audit Committee.  Moreover, we see the beautiful temples, the tens of thousands of missionaries, the thousands of church buildings, the Church's humanitarian and philanthropic efforts, the canneries and storehouses, Welfare Square, Humanitarian Square, and so on.

And these controls seem to be working.  I feel reasonably confident in stating that "the Brethren can't do 'whatever' they want with sacred funds" because they are demonstrably good stewards.

"In furtherance of {the Church's} overall mission," yes.

Thanks,

-Smac

Auditing. I am the stake finance auditor for my stake and we do an extensive audit every 6 months for every ward. Little chance for anyone to get away with doing anything illegal or inappropriate. I am certain this attitude carries all the way up to the the main church finance operations. If anything inappropriate was being done there would likely be more "whistleblowers" letting us know about it. 
 

[Teancum]

26 minutes ago, smac97 said:

Nobody in the Church is getting wealthy from it.

See you keep saying this and it is not an argument I make. I don't accuse the LDS leaders of taking advantage of this massive wealth for personal gain. Nor do I see others for the most part doing that.  BUT, the CHURCH is massively wealthy.  So I don't care about the other issue.  The LDS Church is one of the most wealthy organizations in the world.  So at least as far as discussion with me stop talking about the leaders and the fact they are not getting wealthy. I have NEVER accused them of that and I think the amount of salary or stipend they get annually is to small based on what they to. I would at least double it.  But the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saint is massively wealthy.  You know, the one that claims to be Jesus's church. The man who had no where to lay his head for rest.

 

26 minutes ago, smac97 said:

Nielsen, meanwhile, hopes to get rich from it.

I'm not saying that this is his sole motivation, but it's surely there.

Well I did say money talks.  Yea I think he in part is motivated by money.

26 minutes ago, smac97 said:

He could, of course, put all this to rest by promising to either disclaim any reward or to donate it to charity.  I won't hold my breath.

If he did that I would laud him and I think that would be a food thing. But I an skeptical as well.

26 minutes ago, smac97 said:

Thanks,

-Smac

Edited May 16, 2023 by Teancum

[Teancum]

24 minutes ago, helix said:

That's a complete guess by someone who doesn't have access to the data. Take it with a grain of salt.

Check out this:

https://widowsmitereport.wordpress.com/

 

[helix]

11 minutes ago, JAHS said:

If anything inappropriate was being done there would likely be more "whistleblowers" letting us know about it. 

For most church finances, yes. Unfortunately, Ensign seemed to be a little too cozy with what they were attempting.

The form 13F shenanigans should have been called out by auditors early and fast. When they tried having employees head themselves as some of the split up accounts, two employees read the form itself, recognized they shouldn't be signing it, and declined.

While I don't see any further issues (sounds like no IRS issues, Huntsman case showed no fraud, and non-profits can have money), I don't think we can say that Ensign should be trusted fully on reputation alone.

[smac97]

12 minutes ago, Teancum said:

See you keep saying this and it is not an argument I make.

It's a point you avoid.

12 minutes ago, Teancum said:

I don't accuse the LDS leaders of taking advantage of this massive wealth for personal gain. Nor do I see others for the most part doing that.  BUT, the CHURCH is massively wealthy. 

But its human stewards are not.  

12 minutes ago, Teancum said:

So I don't care about the other issue. 

I get that.  It remains salient, though.

12 minutes ago, Teancum said:

The LDS Church is one of the most wealthy organizations in the world. 

And it spends billions and billions every year on religious and educational and philanthropic efforts.

And nobody is getting wealthy off of it.

12 minutes ago, Teancum said:

So at least as far as discussion with me stop talking about the leaders and the fact they are not getting wealthy.

I will continue to make points I think are pertinent to criticisms of the Church.

I will also not presume to tell you what you may and may not say on a public message board.

12 minutes ago, Teancum said:

I have NEVER accused them of that and I think the amount of salary or stipend they get annually is to small based on what they to. I would at least double it. 

Again, it is a salient point in this discussion.

12 minutes ago, Teancum said:

But the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saint is massively wealthy. 

But those running it are not.  They hold the resources of the Church in trust, not for themselves.  They are not enriching themselves.  They are focused on the continuing vitality of the Church, and meanwhile wisely administer these sacred funds.

I just can't lend much weight to the moral pronouncements of bystanders such as yourself as to how the Church should spend its money.  You endlessly disparage the Church for not doing with its money what you think it ought to do, but you are speaking from a position of substantive ignorance.  Your various disparagements of the Church are predicated on guesswork about how much the Church has.  AFAICS, you have no particular skill or experience in administering a global religion with membership in the millions. 

The Church spends many billions every year on religious/educational/humanitarian efforts, and yet you find fault with it.

The Church's leaders are careful and wise stewards of the Church's money, and yet you find fault with them.

The Church's leaders are not enriching themselves despite having access to the Church's money, and yet you find fault with them.

Such are the pernicious fruits of faultfinding.  No matter what the Church does, people like you will just move the goalposts and continue your vituperative critiques.  

12 minutes ago, Teancum said:

Well I did say money talks.  Yea I think he in part is motivated by money.

If he did that I would laud him and I think that would be a food thing. But I an skeptical as well.

Agreed.  So that's a relevant point to raise.

If he had promised to disclaim any reward, or to donate it to charity, that would be noteworthy.  But I'm not exactly holding my breath.  

Thanks,

-Smac

[CA Steve]

16 hours ago, Teancum said:

16 hours ago, smac97 said:

He could, of course, put all this to rest by promising to either disclaim any reward or to donate it to charity.  I won't hold my breath.

If he did that I would laud him and I think that would be a food thing. But I an skeptical as well.

All Nielsen needs to do is promise to donate less than 1% of whatever the reward is and claim what he does with the rest is confidential and that should satisfy any criticism, right?

Edited May 17, 2023 by CA Steve

[helix]

4 hours ago, Teancum said:

Check out this:

https://widowsmitereport.wordpress.com/

 

I know of it. I've spoken with the author a few times. His analysis is...frustrating at best.  He seems to have no formal training in written analysis, accounting, or presenting arguments. He clearly has an axe to grind against the church. He he likes polemics and infographics. The work is that of an amateur. 

For example, a few days ago someone pointed to me that other institutions have had 13F fines/settlements, and mentioned the info is in found in this website. I sought the names of the offending institutions. The report's author simply placed three institution's names on a chart. No citation was given beyond the chart and no text discussion of it. When queried as to the actual sources for this institutions and their fines/settlements, the website's author chimed into the discussion by referring us to a government search website. Then he lumped additional URLs into a catch-all sources page. Nothing still is cited. You just have to go through every URL in his sources page and hope you can find the correct URL, if he remembered to supply it.

The author is adamant that the church makes about $5 billion a year in tithing. He does so by trying to guess everything the church spends money on, then assumes he must be right. For example, he assumes the entire church missionary program averages $854 per missionary per month in tithing expenses. No citation or argument is given why he uses $854. It's just presented. I would consider that to be grossly too low of an estimate, and I'd prefer some kind of ability to double check the $854 number.

The analysis I like best starts with actual data from decades ago and extrapolates forward: https://journal.interpreterfoundation.org/through-a-glass-darkly-examining-church-finances/. This estimates $12 billion in 2010.

Edited May 17, 2023 by helix

[Analytics]

1 hour ago, helix said:

That's a complete guess by someone who doesn't have access to the data. Take it with a grain of salt.

It is an educated guess based on all of the information available. 

The numbers are’t precise, but they are of the correct order of magnitude, which is enough to prove my point.

[Hamilton Porter]

Can't believe the LDS people here expend so much energy defending this trivial nonsense.

I care more about Rotisserie chicken at Costco than this subject.

[Anakin7]

16 minutes ago, Hamilton Porter said:

Can't believe the LDS people here expend so much energy defending this trivial nonsense.

I care more about Rotisserie chicken at Costco than this subject.

I work at a Costco, I hear you loud and clear and feel you !.

[Stormin' Mormon]

3 hours ago, smac97 said:

Again, it is a salient point in this discussion.

But those running it are not.  They hold the resources of the Church in trust, not for themselves.  They are not enriching themselves.  They are focused on the continuing vitality of the Church, and meanwhile wisely administer these sacred funds.

The Church's leaders are not enriching themselves despite having access to the Church's money, and yet you find fault with them.

It's more than just A salient point, it's THE salient point*. It's the beginning, middle, and end of the question.

Simply having money is not illegal. Misusing it is. And if there's no evidence of misuse, then there's no there there. There's no legal issue, no crime, no controversy.

*For me, at any rate.

 

Edited May 17, 2023 by Stormin' Mormon

[Tacenda]

A post on reddit. Someone on the inside sees where the members get the shaft. This has got to stop, the church treats it's members terribly, IMO. 

"PIMO Stake Clerk here. Won’t reveal location for the sake of my privacy, given that it’s pretty easy to identify me from the calling alone. My Stake consists of units of a suburban/rural mix.

The depravity by which the LDS Finances are run are felt all the way down to the individual member level. To provide you with some figures - for my Stake we take in on average $230,000 in tithing contributions every month; we receive from SLC a mere $9,000 per QUARTER. This equates to $2.76 million in contributions annually, just from my Stake, where we receive just $36,000 annually from SLC, or in other words just 1.3% of what we contribute.

From this, we are expected to fund all programs at a Ward and Stake level, AND have to pay for phone bills for each building, as well as post office box rental.

Suffice it to say, I end up spending a lot of out of pocket money, just to broadcast Stake Conferences, given that our Facilities Management has been gutted over the years, and our buildings are so far below standard, that even with an IT degree, it takes me countless hours to figure out how to make a basic broadcast backwards compatible…given that the Church can’t be bothered to bring us into the 21st century, much less provide an adequate budget for doing so.

Now here’s the kicker: funds are allocated from SLC based on attendance…and guess what? They don’t care about the adults that attend either! They are only worth “1x” when it comes to fund allocation. In fact, the allocations (supposedly adjusted for area, break down like this):

Sacrament Meeting Amount Per Attendee: $12.00

Young Men Amount Per Attendee: $12.50

Young Women Amount Per Attendee: $12.50

Primary Amount Per Attendee: $6.25

Young Single Adults Amount Per Attendee: $6.25

Notice anything? Units get “double points” for youth that attend - because they get counted twice essentially - once for each hour. Us adults though? Completely irrelevant it seems.

For those that have had the courage to walk away and leave this depravity behind you, I commend you! For those like me, that are effectively stuck inside until immediate family dies off and relieves pressure and scorn, hang in there! It’s not going to get any better any time soon! Just remember - anything you do is confidential, not secret!"

Edited May 17, 2023 by Tacenda

[webbles]

34 minutes ago, Tacenda said:

A post on reddit. Someone on the inside sees where the members get the shaft. This has got to stop, the church treats it's members terribly, IMO. 

I would expect a stake in the US to receive less than they donate.  The US and Canada members subsidize the rest of the world.  I was a branch president on my mission in Brazil and the amount of tithing that was donated was negligible compared to how much was provided to the branch.  The rent alone for the building exceeded the tithing.

[JAHS]

27 minutes ago, Tacenda said:

A post on reddit. Someone on the inside sees where the members get the shaft. This has got to stop, the church treats it's members terribly, IMO. 

"PIMO Stake Clerk here. Won’t reveal location for the sake of my privacy, given that it’s pretty easy to identify me from the calling alone. My Stake consists of units of a suburban/rural mix.

The depravity by which the LDS Finances are run are felt all the way down to the individual member level. To provide you with some figures - for my Stake we take in on average $230,000 in tithing contributions every month; we receive from SLC a mere $9,000 per QUARTER. This equates to $2.76 million in contributions annually, just from my Stake, where we receive just $36,000 annually from SLC, or in other words just 1.3% of what we contribute.

From this, we are expected to fund all programs at a Ward and Stake level, AND have to pay for phone bills for each building, as well as post office box rental.

Suffice it to say, I end up spending a lot of out of pocket money, just to broadcast Stake Conferences, given that our Facilities Management has been gutted over the years, and our buildings are so far below standard, that even with an IT degree, it takes me countless hours to figure out how to make a basic broadcast backwards compatible…given that the Church can’t be bothered to bring us into the 21st century, much less provide an adequate budget for doing so.

Now here’s the kicker: funds are allocated from SLC based on attendance…and guess what? They don’t care about the adults that attend either! They are only worth “1x” when it comes to fund allocation. In fact, the allocations (supposedly adjusted for area, break down like this):

Sacrament Meeting Amount Per Attendee: $12.00

Young Men Amount Per Attendee: $12.50

Young Women Amount Per Attendee: $12.50

Primary Amount Per Attendee: $6.25

Young Single Adults Amount Per Attendee: $6.25

Notice anything? Units get “double points” for youth that attend - because they get counted twice essentially - once for each hour. Us adults though? Completely irrelevant it seems.

For those that have had the courage to walk away and leave this depravity behind you, I commend you! For those like me, that are effectively stuck inside until immediate family dies off and relieves pressure and scorn, hang in there! It’s not going to get any better any time soon! Just remember - anything you do is confidential, not secret!"

Experiences differ. In my California stake we have plenty in the ward budgets for activities for each organization. Infact we always have an excess at the end of the year that sometimes gets sent back to SLC. Everyone gets reimbursed for their expenses.  We have plenty of fast offering funds to help those in need in the wards so no one is denied the help.  We also have plenty in the Ward missionary account to help families who need it to support their missionary. I guess we just have good sacrament meeting attendance.

[Hamilton Porter]

45 minutes ago, Tacenda said:

A post on reddit. Someone on the inside sees where the members get the shaft. This has got to stop, the church treats it's members terribly, IMO. 

"PIMO Stake Clerk here. Won’t reveal location for the sake of my privacy, given that it’s pretty easy to identify me from the calling alone. My Stake consists of units of a suburban/rural mix.

The depravity by which the LDS Finances are run are felt all the way down to the individual member level. To provide you with some figures - for my Stake we take in on average $230,000 in tithing contributions every month; we receive from SLC a mere $9,000 per QUARTER. This equates to $2.76 million in contributions annually, just from my Stake, where we receive just $36,000 annually from SLC, or in other words just 1.3% of what we contribute.

From this, we are expected to fund all programs at a Ward and Stake level, AND have to pay for phone bills for each building, as well as post office box rental.

Suffice it to say, I end up spending a lot of out of pocket money, just to broadcast Stake Conferences, given that our Facilities Management has been gutted over the years, and our buildings are so far below standard, that even with an IT degree, it takes me countless hours to figure out how to make a basic broadcast backwards compatible…given that the Church can’t be bothered to bring us into the 21st century, much less provide an adequate budget for doing so.

Now here’s the kicker: funds are allocated from SLC based on attendance…and guess what? They don’t care about the adults that attend either! They are only worth “1x” when it comes to fund allocation. In fact, the allocations (supposedly adjusted for area, break down like this):

Sacrament Meeting Amount Per Attendee: $12.00

Young Men Amount Per Attendee: $12.50

Young Women Amount Per Attendee: $12.50

Primary Amount Per Attendee: $6.25

Young Single Adults Amount Per Attendee: $6.25

Notice anything? Units get “double points” for youth that attend - because they get counted twice essentially - once for each hour. Us adults though? Completely irrelevant it seems.

For those that have had the courage to walk away and leave this depravity behind you, I commend you! For those like me, that are effectively stuck inside until immediate family dies off and relieves pressure and scorn, hang in there! It’s not going to get any better any time soon! Just remember - anything you do is confidential, not secret!"

Sorry, what is the "depravity"? Couldn't tell from what he's saying.

[Hamilton Porter]

9 minutes ago, webbles said:

I would expect a stake in the US to receive less than they donate.  The US and Canada members subsidize the rest of the world.  I was a branch president on my mission in Brazil and the amount of tithing that was donated was negligible compared to how much was provided to the branch.  The rent alone for the building exceeded the tithing.

This should be obvious to anyone with half a brain.

[Diamondhands69]

6 hours ago, JAHS said:

Auditing. I am the stake finance auditor for my stake and we do an extensive audit every 6 months for every ward. Little chance for anyone to get away with doing anything illegal or inappropriate. I am certain this attitude carries all the way up to the the main church finance operations. If anything inappropriate was being done there would likely be more "whistleblowers" letting us know about it. 
 

You would be correct in at least the first part of your statement. The church auditing dept did bring up the 13f filings as a concern . Their concern was duly noted. 
 

paragraph 32

https://www.sec.gov/litigation/admin/2023/34-96951.pdf

[Diamondhands69]

I’m late to this convo so just adding my perspective from inside the financial industry. I have had many discussions with lds and non  about this ensign peak fiasco. 
 

This goes back to the initial whistleblower report in about 2019. 
 

At that time no one knew if the church had actually done this so our initial reaction was wait and see. I will say the overwhelming opinion was there was no way the church is this dumb. We have to file 13F and it is a pretty clear cut form. Simple and if you have questions the SEC will help you. To that point,  we all know that stuff gets looked at by no one so getting caught is hard to do even if you try. Ensign Peak had a target on its back and some smart people figured it all out. 
 

At that time we pretty much agreed if they did do this, they had some nerve to falsify those forms and create a paper trail. 
 

This was the opinions of CPAs, CFAs, FAs, Traders, CFPs etc I spoke with and I don’t recall anyone saying it wouldn’t be a big deal if the church got caught falsifying 13Fs. Most in fact didn’t believe it to be true. They trusted the church was more honest than that. Turns out the church isn’t nearly as honest as we would like to have believed and way too many licensed professionals traded their integrity in order to tow the company line. 
 

Many lately have mentioned that guys who worked at Ensign Peak are now toxic for hiring as no one knows if they were in on the scam. They will get hired, but more likely by financial pros who need someone willing to play fast and loose with the rules. It is all about AUM and commissions for many of these guys. 

[Diamondhands69]

Another issue that came up is the bailout of Beneficial Life. The prevailing defense is that all these customers with policies would end up losing their insurance if Beneficial Life went under. 

If they went under, the policies are covered by an insurance policy with some generous guarantees. Most face amounts of policies were far below what the limits were for coverage. Sure some with life contracts over 500mm or annuities over $250k would only be made whole to that limit, but the ones under had nothing to worry about. 
 

Friend if mine who I met recently used to work there during this bailout. Internally the company was worried how it would look if their for-profit went under because of its long-standing ties to the church and Pres Monson. 
 

It was more important for the church’s image to bail out BL than to let it go bankrupt. They  sold lots of rip-job whole life policies and annuities with crazy guarantees. These products have crazy high expenses and usually those who buy them are super risk averse and are willing to get ripped off for a small amount of safety. These folks are targeted by the annuity and whole life sales crews. The financial crisis brought that all back to earth and now we find that tithing was used to prop it up for appearances. Like I said, majority of policies would have been covered so this was primarily to save face for a small fee (investment) of about $600millon. 
 

https://www.ulhiga.org

and a video that didn’t age too well. 

 

 

 

[sunstoned]

Newsweek has an interesting take on the Desert News rebuttal to the 60 minutes piece.

 

Mormon-Owned Paper Slams '60 Minutes' Episode

CBS's 60 Minutes has come under fire from a publication owned by the Mormon Church after the show aired an interview with a whistleblower who alleges the church's financial arm tried to hide billions of dollars and abuse its tax-exempt status.

In the episode aired Sunday, David Nielsen, a former investment adviser for the church, accused the church's investment arm, Ensign Peak Advisors, of acting as "a clandestine hedge fund". It was the first time he had spoken publicly since telling federal regulators in 2019 that the fund amassed $100 billion intended for charitable purposes.

https://www.newsweek.com/morman-news-cb ... ts-1800635

[Tacenda]

15 hours ago, smac97 said:

Nobody in the Church is getting wealthy from it.

Nielsen, meanwhile, hopes to get rich from it.

I'm not saying that this is his sole motivation, but it's surely there.

He could, of course, put all this to rest by promising to either disclaim any reward or to donate it to charity.  I won't hold my breath.

Thanks,

-Smac

He looks to be well off, he should if he's concerned with the poor and needy.

[Teancum]

14 hours ago, helix said:

I know of it. I've spoken with the author a few times. His analysis is...frustrating at best.  He seems to have no formal training in written analysis, accounting, or presenting arguments. He clearly has an axe to grind against the church. He he likes polemics and infographics. The work is that of an amateur. 

For example, a few days ago someone pointed to me that other institutions have had 13F fines/settlements, and mentioned the info is in found in this website. I sought the names of the offending institutions. The report's author simply placed three institution's names on a chart. No citation was given beyond the chart and no text discussion of it. When queried as to the actual sources for this institutions and their fines/settlements, the website's author chimed into the discussion by referring us to a government search website. Then he lumped additional URLs into a catch-all sources page. Nothing still is cited. You just have to go through every URL in his sources page and hope you can find the correct URL, if he remembered to supply it.

The author is adamant that the church makes about $5 billion a year in tithing. He does so by trying to guess everything the church spends money on, then assumes he must be right. For example, he assumes the entire church missionary program averages $854 per missionary per month in tithing expenses. No citation or argument is given why he uses $854. It's just presented. I would consider that to be grossly too low of an estimate, and I'd prefer some kind of ability to double check the $854 number.

The analysis I like best starts with actual data from decades ago and extrapolates forward: https://journal.interpreterfoundation.org/through-a-glass-darkly-examining-church-finances/. This estimates $12 billion in 2010.

I don't think you really know much about the site nor who has put it together. It is not one person.  It is made up of many persons who have experience in financial matters.