Tithing estimated numbers....

[SloanHater]

When we were first married, we lived in a ward that alone could have easily been raking in $5 mil in tithing. I'm guessing your number is low.

Did I mention the great Christmas Parties?

[Moliere]

My understanding is that through the 60s, the church went through a building boom and a budget crisis, which resulted in deficit spending and stopped announcing tithing numbers.

Here is an interesting paper on the church's efforts to keep the financial records sealed during a civil suit.

http://org.law.rutgers.edu/publicati...thingShort.pdf

Interesting read, but it looks like the guy has no case against the church based on this statement:

The alleged sexual abuse took place as often as twice a week for two years between 1987 and 1989. According to the Plaintiff, nicknamed D.I. for anonymity, Johnson was acting as an agent of the LDS church through its home teaching program, thereby making the church vicariously liable for the damages that Johnson caused under the doctrine of respondeat superior.8 The LDS church denies that Johnson was acting as its agent, instead stating that he visited the home as a family friend.9

Twice a week? Most home teachers don't even visit once a month.

[Moliere]

My personal guess is real estate. I think the church has vast, vast real estate holdings all over the world. The church is like some of my farmer clients. For the most part they live in humble houses, wear humble clothes, drive old pick up trucks and when they make some money they buy the property next door and the next and the next and the next. Many of then have net worths well into the eight figures but you could never ever guess it form their lifestyles (well, you might be able to guess from the litigation budgets of a few of them).

Maybe it has been discussed, but is there a stated reason that we are not transparent? Please no analogies to the corporate world; we are not a business. I'm wondering if there has been a statement telling us why. Maybe there is a really good reason, I'm just very ignorant in this area.

You are likely somewhat correct, which leads me to this question...If the church had to dissolve, who would get the holdings? There are no shareholders nor are there any real owners of the church.

[Sleeping in EQ]

Quinn, Prince and others have documented how the Church stopped giving financial details at the time of President Moyle's ill-considered building program.

This isn't a big issue for me, but I can't help but wonder if today the Church is quietly spending money on a bunch of right-wing causes. If I were pulling the strings on such funding I wouldn't want that to be known to the general membership. That could be messy.

[Moliere]

Quinn, Prince and others have documented how the Church stopped giving financial details at the time of President Moyle's ill-considered building program.

This isn't a big issue for me, but I can't help but wonder if today the Church is quietly spending money on a bunch of right-wing causes. If I were pulling the strings on such funding I wouldn't want that to be known to the general membership. That could be messy.

Or maybe they are spending a bunch of money on left-wing causes. Is it me or does Pres. Monson seem more like a democrat with his imploring of the general membership to support the elderly and needy? If something like that leaked out the repercussions would be huge and messy.

[Katy Lied]

You are likely somewhat correct, which leads me to this question...If the church had to dissolve, who would get the holdings? There are no shareholders nor are there any real owners of the church.

This was a really sticky issue when Joseph Smith died. Didn't it take 18 months for Brigham Young to seize control because the ownership of the assets of the church were unknown?

[I.J. Reilly]

Well, once again I have been spending my time researching something loosely related to something someone else posted on here instead of doing what I should be. Probably not many will be interested again, but it was personally satisfying, so I thought I would post it here. Oh well.

Anyways, after looking up some stuff related to this thread, I found out that in the UK the church has to make financial filings with the government that must be independently audited. That may or may not have been mentioned on here before. So I went and looked up their filing, available here, and pulled some of the numbers from there. The latest numbers are from 2008. Using those numbers, I have extrapolated some general numbers. For a variety of reasons, these numbers cannot be taken to be a clear estimation of the numbers, but are probably close to a rough estimate.

As a note on my numbers, the church reports 183,672 members in Great Britain, however, for my calculations I have used a base number of 142,418 members, which is the number of members in England proper. This is because besides operating The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Great Britain) (An unlimited company and registered charity) in Great Britain, the Church also has 2 other sister corporations in the country, whose filings I really didn't want to take the time to look up, so I just adjusted the number of members down. Like I said, these are all very rough estimates that could change based on many, many factors.

One final note on the estimated numbers. My estimations are based on the assumption that Great Britain would represent more or less an average of the rest of the world. This could very well be way off. However, these are the best and most comprehensive numbers that exist to work with, so I am using them. These numbers were figured using Great Britain Generally Accepted Accounting Principles, which I will assume are roughly the same as US GAAP standards.

The Church in Great Britain reports taking in 32,101,000 pounds in donations, mostly in tithing but inclusive of the other donative categories.

The Church in Great Britain reports that its total assets minus liabilities in the country at the end of 2008 stood at 276,106,000 pounds. This includes real estate, investments, cash, etc.

Using a pound to dollar conversion of 1 pound = 1.5248 dollars, and the membership numbers of 142,418, there was an average donation of 343.69 dollars per member in Great Britain for 2008 (this was a decrease from 2007). The Church had total assets minus liabilities of 2292.16 dollars per member (also a decrease).

Using 13.5 million members worldwide to calculate, that would mean that the church pulled in worldwide donations of 4.64 billion dollars in 2008 and had total assets minus liabilities of 30.94 billion dollars.

Like I said, these can only be held out as the roughest of estimations, but I found it interesting, nonetheless.

[Moliere]

My personal guess is real estate.

http://investigations.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/08/13/13262285-mormon-church-earns-7-billion-a-year-from-tithing-analysis-indicates?fb_action_ids=10154086510070133&fb_action_types=og.likes

It owns about $35 billion worth of temples and meeting houses around the world, and controls farms, ranches, shopping malls and other commercial ventures worth many billions more.

Looks like UD had the spirit of prophecy...

[Topper]

Thr numbers are not that impressive. Bill Gates os worth more than the church and the church could barely purchase a B 1 bomber or two..

Sent from my SCH-I535 using Tapatalk

[HuskyFreeNorthwest]

Good old SloanHater, wonder who he's hating now?

[Walter Sobchak]

Good old SloanHater, wonder who he's hating now?

Yeah, seems weird to choose a nick based on something you hate (or strongly dislike)... amirite?

[HuskyFreeNorthwest]

Yeah, seems weird to choose a nick based on something you hate (or strongly dislike)... amirite?

Only a real loser would do something like that.