Mastodawn

Rory May 16, 2023

@flexghost You would think that they would be using that money to help those in need... Instead, I'm sure that money is going to right-wing hacks... with the promise that if republicans win, those in dire need lose... Are we sure that this Mormon place is a church, and not a MAGA town hall?

@customer228 @flexghost Hi friends.

I’m LDS, and I looked into this fund. The articles/whistleblower are kind of disingenuous. The church has a savings fund that they’ve been building for something like 50 years.

The church spends billions a year for basically charity stuff. Plus the church has a really comprehensive private welfare system: Food, Clothes, Furniture, Rent.

It’s just kinda silly.

@Kowfm @customer228 @flexghost Can you point to audited financial statements to that effect?

@barryparr @customer228 @flexghost No. You can look at their fancy published report here: https://assets.churchofjesuschrist.org/c1/00/c10076f3a7d111ed9d03eeeeac1eb1c62ef513d9/welfare_caring_for_those_in_need_2022_annual_report.pdf
.

@Kowfm @customer228 @flexghost that’s a press release. It also contradictory statement they spend billions on charity.

Karl Oscar Weber

@barryparr Looks like I was wrong, Billion instead of billions.

@Kowfm a billion here, a billion there …

Soon it adds up to real money.

I’m on the board of a 501(c)(3). We are required to spend 3% of our assets on our charitable purpose.

Looks like the church is only spending 1% assuming this press release is correct which we don’t know

@barryparr

If the church has like $150 Billion in savings, and the annual expenditures are around $7 billion, combining church operations and charitable stuff, then that's something like 20 years of budget.

The LDS church doesn't pay most of the "clergy". So local leaders, bishops, etc... are unpaid. General Authorities, and Apostles are all paid the same, but comparatively modest salaries. Nobody is getting rich off of tithing money.

@Kowfm Without audited financials, these numbers are not useful. No income statement or balance sheet that includes all income, expense, assets, and liabilities, and we don't even know how, or with whom, that money is spent. Also, by assuming that $7B comes out of savings, you're ignoring tithing and investment income and God knows what else.

@barryparr Well you can find them if you'd like.

I don't think $7B comes out of savings, I think their annual budget is around $7B. They probably receive most of that as tithing each year anyways.

Doing an in depth dive into the finances of the LDS church is not on my list of things to do today.

My primary argument is that the investment account is seen as a bad thing, or illegal, which is silly. Having savings is what we're supposed to have. Why not a church?

@Kowfm You went into this with the primary argument that the church was spending billions on charity, which turned out to be false.

Then you said that Ensign Peak would cover barely 20 years of operations. Which is also not true. EP appears to be pulling in something like $10B/yr in investment income, which is a lot more than the $7B/yr that you say is the church's cost of operations - which EP doesn't even pay for.

@Kowfm I'm saying there's something wrong about a tax-exempt organization hoarding more than $100B in secret and not paying taxes that were due on its investment income.

I'm surprised you don't agree with that.

@Kowfm I'm also saying that at this point that we can't trust LDS statements about their finances that have not been independently audited. But I don't think you'd agree with that.

@barryparr no I agree. Probably don’t put your trust 100% into statements you can’t verify.

They should probably do a large audit and publish the results.

I think a large concern is they don’t want people to think that church leadership are making investment divisions. Which they aren’t. Hence the reason for EP in the first place.