LDS Freedom Forum

"Why Does The Mormon Church Not Publish An Income Statement In The Us For Its Members To See Where The Money Is Going?"
"The politically-well connected LDS, Inc. doesn't want to create a stink by letting members in on where their tithing seed money is going in pursuit of business profits, I think. Their persecution-complex-generated mantra for this secrecy is basically that "the power to demand a report on how we spend your money is the power to destroy our Mormon Church-operated businesses."

Lets be honest...an overwhelming majority of people (members or pre-members) wouldnt know what they were looking at.

I had similar thoughts about Trump. Why release something that would only confuse people? That your enemies would twist and manipulate?

This generation has a 7-9 second attention span, and is quite incapable of processing complex information without someone telling them what to think about it.

tribrac wrote: ↑April 2nd, 2022, 9:24 pm Lets be honest...an overwhelming majority of people (members or pre-members) wouldnt know what they were looking at.

I agree. This is from an older thread with the same theme:

inho wrote: ↑May 18th, 2016, 1:34 am Have you read Sam Brunson's article The Present, Past, and Future of LDS Financial Transparency in Dialogue?

As a result, the question to ask is not whether the Church should disclose its finances. It is, instead, what form that disclosure should take.
...
I will argue that the level of financial disclosure is far less important—from both a practical and theoretical perspective—than the trustworthiness of the person providing the disclosure. If the person doing the disclosing can be trusted, even the most general level of disclosure communicates valuable information. Conversely, if the person doing the disclosing cannot be trusted, the finest-grain disclosure provides virtually no usable information.
...
[talking about the times when Church did disclose some financial information:]
In either case, though, even knowing the annual revenue does not give us a perfect picture of whether the Church is financially sound or whether the Church acted fraudulently. The financial statements not only fail to disclose the Church’s revenue, they largely do not disclose its assets (with the exception, in some years, of assets held for welfare purposes). Even if the Church spent more than its revenue for two or three years, it may have built up a surplus in prior years, with the intent to use that surplus to fund years with insufficient revenue. Likewise, the Church spending less than its revenue does not mean the Church was engaged in fraud; it may have been building a surplus for just such a rainy day. Disclosing expenditures alone, then, provides very little informational benefit.
...
But even if it were required to disclose—as other tax-exempt organizations are—the ability of fraudulent charities to raise significant funds suggests that disclosure has, at best, a highly circumscribed capacity to police financial practices, even when such disclosure is required by law. Unless potential donors pay close attention to the financial disclosures and have the financial literacy to evaluate those disclosures, impact on the disclosing organization will be insignificant.

They do all the time in the UK. It's extremely informative.

Overall, the church has an embarrassment of riches. They do not want that exposed.

tribrac wrote: ↑April 2nd, 2022, 9:24 pm Lets be honest...an overwhelming majority of people (members or pre-members) wouldnt know what they were looking at.

I had similar thoughts about Trump. Why release something that would only confuse people? That your enemies would twist and manipulate?

This generation has a 7-9 second attention span, and is quite incapable of processing complex information without someone telling them what to think about it.

That’s an interesting point. I’d only add that it’s not just “this generation” who wants to know where all the money went. Two points I’d make on that:

1) Not all of us young folk are possessed of an ADHD / Tik-Tok / Twitter post mentality. Some of us actually read, read well, and read often. A few months back I had to digest a 350 page annual financial report, summarize it, and condense the information into a dozen or so action points for my executive team. I did it in about a day, and it wasn’t a big issue for me.

2) The fact that the church has such a significant number of business interests, including shell companies, insurance, banking, and real estate holding companies… none of which they are willing to show as contributing to any benefit of the members or humanity in general… It’s frankly quite alarming. It’s not that they CAN’T be transparent - it’s that they refuse to.

This isn’t Donald Trump we’re talking about. With him I’d expect all sorts of shenanigans, and so would any other reasonable auditor. But a church run by Prophets, Seers, and Revelators who claim to speak to/for God Himself… They should have absolutely nothing to hide.

Many other churches post their financials publicly, down to the monthly level. There’s no mystery about where your money went or what it did. Not so with the LDS church. It goes into an enormous pot and all you see are news articles about new real estate purchases, tax fraud whistleblowers, Huntsman lawsuits, and the occasional one or two temples announced.

Has the church been taken over by lawyers and MBAs? What’s so hard about transparency that not even lawsuits and public spotlights can convince them to open their books? The more they dig in their heels, the worse it looks.

TL;DR - having a spiderweb of complicated financial dealings that is unintelligible to anyone other than forensic scientists isn’t exactly a hallmark of the kingdom of God.

Corruption

Bit weird to suggest it's not worth being honest because people won't understand or might use it against you!

An income statement would not just list where the money went, it would list where it came from. Once the perpetual income is above what is required to maintain the chapels, temples, and employees, the church can not say they need tithing. Now maybe the widow would be blessed for contributing her mite, but what of the women living on the street or in their car with their children because the church will not help?

So if Jesus did ever speak with RMN, He might ask "Do you have enough with your hundreds of billions to help the crying woman on the street? RMN might say something silly like "Of course not, she did not pay tithing." Well then let us see if we have a kingdom for sewer rats. Perhaps you will like it there.

NeveR wrote: ↑April 3rd, 2022, 10:32 am Bit weird to suggest it's not worth being honest because people won't understand or might use it against you!

Yes, but this is probably the mental gymnastics many use to justify them being dishonest with their fellow men.

Because the church does not believe in transparency and accountability. All is not well in Zion.

Thinker wrote: ↑April 11th, 2022, 12:01 pm

NeveR wrote: ↑April 3rd, 2022, 10:32 am Bit weird to suggest it's not worth being honest because people won't understand or might use it against you!

Yes, but this is probably the mental gymnastics many use to justify them being dishonest with their fellow men.

Well…. Even cops have to read Miranda Rights…


The IRS is another government department that will use every bit of honest information against one.

So is the Corp pleading the 5th….. ??

JK4Woods wrote: ↑April 11th, 2022, 2:32 pm

Thinker wrote: ↑April 11th, 2022, 12:01 pm

NeveR wrote: ↑April 3rd, 2022, 10:32 am Bit weird to suggest it's not worth being honest because people won't understand or might use it against you!

Yes, but this is probably the mental gymnastics many use to justify them being dishonest with their fellow men.

Well…. Even cops have to read Miranda Rights…


The IRS is another government department that will use every bit of honest information against one.

So is the Corp pleading the 5th….. ??

Only until they are ultimately betrayed by the masters they serve and that trusty 501c3 status gets revoked.


All the prophet's horses and all the prophet's men, will not be able to put the corporation back together again.

One big reason: their failure to use funds according to doctrine of Christ -
".. and there were no poor among them"

Ontario wrote: ↑April 2nd, 2022, 8:42 pm "Why Does The Mormon Church Not Publish An Income Statement In The Us For Its Members To See Where The Money Is Going?"
"The politically-well connected LDS, Inc. doesn't want to create a stink by letting members in on where their tithing seed money is going in pursuit of business profits, I think. Their persecution-complex-generated mantra for this secrecy is basically that "the power to demand a report on how we spend your money is the power to destroy our Mormon Church-operated businesses."

They used to back in the late 60s I think it was. But then an apostle made some really bad decisions and put the church in a bad spot because they were in the red. He was quietly released and put over something else and ever since they kept the finances from the public.

They need to be transparent with the tithing money.

Their business dealings I’m fine if they keep it hush hush. But I would still want to know what they are doing and what organizations they are a part of or donate to that are not in harmony with the gospel.

JK4Woods wrote: ↑April 11th, 2022, 2:32 pmSo is the Corp pleading the 5th….. ??

Secret combinations are hush-hush.

Some is not known, some not believed & some believed but not done justice by courts. But abundant evidence has accumulated already against them - like how they use Jesus Christ’s name to make money, manipulate members like priestcraft, charging money/tithes for temple worthiness.

sandman45 wrote: ↑April 11th, 2022, 6:44 pm

Ontario wrote: ↑April 2nd, 2022, 8:42 pm "Why Does The Mormon Church Not Publish An Income Statement In The Us For Its Members To See Where The Money Is Going?"
"The politically-well connected LDS, Inc. doesn't want to create a stink by letting members in on where their tithing seed money is going in pursuit of business profits, I think. Their persecution-complex-generated mantra for this secrecy is basically that "the power to demand a report on how we spend your money is the power to destroy our Mormon Church-operated businesses."

They used to back in the late 60s I think it was. But then an apostle made some really bad decisions and put the church in a bad spot because they were in the red. He was quietly released and put over something else and ever since they kept the finances from the public.

They need to be transparent with the tithing money.

Their business dealings I’m fine if they keep it hush hush. But I would still want to know what they are doing and what organizations they are a part of or donate to that are not in harmony with the gospel.

That's actually pretty huge...

I recall a video where Hinckley was being interviewed in South America and he told the interviewer that church funds are only divulged to its members… blatant lie.

They don't even pretend that they follow the Doctrine and Covenants anymore. Common consent? Laugh out loud, if you sustain us you consent to ANYTHING we decide. All things in Zion to be judged by the inhabitants of Zion? How is that possible when they tell us nothing?!? They act like Ensign Park is their only investment vehicle, and maybe it is. But maybe it isn't, and how would we ever know? The Church's finances are basically a black hole and light almost never escapes from it.

It was President Henry D. Moyle that spent the Church into a massive financial hole when he was in charge of the building department. His reasoning was that putting substantial buildings in places where there weren't that many members would eventually increase membership, which would increase tithing, which would pay for the chapels that were being built. I don't know that he was doing it to build tithing revenues, I got the impression that he honestly felt that this would help build the kingdom, but that was the financial justification from what I've read. This basically happened, but too late to save his position.

When Pres. McKay realized the hole they had ended up in, they removed Moyle's responsibilities for the building department and missionary work (Moyle got blamed for the "baseball" baptisms that were happening). Wendell Mendenhall (Bronco Mendenhall's grandfather) was removed as head of the building department and Thorpe Isaacson was brought in as a counselor in the First Presidency to President Eldon Tanner's chagrin.

Of course it wouldn't be good for the members to know about the multimillion dollar overruns. There was a $32 million dollar deficit in 1962--$304.6 million dollars in today's money and the Church didn't have quite 2 million members so that would be like a $2.5 billion dollar deficit in today's Church with no money in reserve. So they quit publishing the financial numbers for general consumption in 1959 (and eventually decided they would never allow such a financial-near-death-experience to ever happen again). Of course, that time was exactly when the Church membership actually needed to know about the Church finances. Go figure.

Atrasado wrote: ↑April 12th, 2022, 9:42 am They don't even pretend that they follow the Doctrine and Covenants anymore. Common consent? Laugh out loud, if you sustain us you consent to ANYTHING we decide. All things in Zion to be judged by the inhabitants of Zion? How is that possible when they tell us nothing?!? They act like Ensign Park is their only investment vehicle, and maybe it is. But maybe it isn't, and how would we ever know? Churches finances are basically a black hole and light almost never escapes from it.

It was President Henry D. Moyle that spent the Church into a massive financial hole when he was in charge of the building department. His reasoning was that putting substantial buildings in places where there weren't that many members would eventually increase membership, which would increase tithing, which would pay for the chapels that were being built. I don't know that he was doing it to build tithing revenues, I got the impression that he honestly felt that this would help build the kingdom, but that was the financial justification from what I've read which basically happened, but too late to save his position.

When Pres. McKay realized the hole they had ended up in, they removed Moyle's responsibilities for the building department and missionary work (Moyle got blamed for the "baseball" baptisms that were happening). Wendell Mendenhall (Bronco Mendenhall's grandfather) was removed as head of the building department and Thorpe Isaacson was brought in as a counselor in the First Presidency to President Eldon Tanner's chagrin.

Of course it wouldn't be good for the members to know about the multimillion dollar overruns. There was a $32 million dollar deficit in 1962--$304.6 million dollars in today's money and the Church didn't have quite 2 million members so that would be like a $2.5 billion dollar deficit in today's Church with no money in reserve. So they quit publishing the financial numbers for general consumption in 1959 (and eventually decided they would never allow such a financial-near-death-experience to ever happen again). Of course, that time was exactly when the Church membership actually needed to know about the Church finances. Go figure.

Thanks!! For adding this. I remember reading this exact thing on some site and couldn’t remember where it was