Whistleblower - Ensign Peak Advisors

[clackamascoug]

$100 billion isn't that much anymore. There are at least 5 individuals walking around that are worth more than the church. And I bet the wealthiest 100 members of the 16 million member church - are worth a combined $100 billion.

[Non Sequitur]

1. The church asks its millions of members to contribute 10 percent of their income, and many do.

2. The church is financially conservative, operates within its means, and wisely manages the rest.

Wake me up when somebody has a news story that is not the natural if not inevitable consequence of 1 and 2.

I'm not an accountant and am not privy to the Church's finances, but I'm honestly curious how much of that $100 Billion was tax exempt and how much wasn't. And if the Church is sitting on and investing all that money, why are members able to claim their donations on their taxes as charitable contributions? If you're simply sitting on and investing all those billions of dollars, it doesn't look like a lot of charity is going on? How about we look at the percentage of the Church's wealth that actually goes toward charitable causes and apply that percentage to the amount of your 10% that you are able to deduct from your taxes each year. The line between charitable contributions and dues is not that fine.

[tooblue]

I'm not an accountant and am not privy to the Church's finances, but I'm honestly curious how much of that $100 Billion was tax exempt and how much wasn't. And if the Church is sitting on and investing all that money, why are members able to claim their donations on their taxes as charitable contributions? If you're simply sitting on and investing all those billions of dollars, it doesn't look like a lot of charity is going on? How about we look at the percentage of the Church's wealth that actually goes toward charitable causes and apply that percentage to the amount of your 10% that you are able to deduct from your taxes each year. The line between charitable contributions and dues is not that fine.

I wonder if there is a way to discover whether there is "a lot of charity going on"?

https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/...g.pdf?lang=eng

^ that's the 2020 annual report for LDS charities. It's publicly available to anyone with a computer. There is even a mobile version of the report available for download. You can find it here:

https://www.latterdaysaintcharities..../2020?lang=eng

Oh, and the church just dropped $20 million to secure 2 billion vaccines to be distributed by Unicef. "Latter-day Saint Charities becomes the single largest private sector donor to date to support UNICEF’s ACT-Accelerator and COVAX work":

https://www.unicef.org/press-release...lobal-covid-19

[Moliere]

I'm not an accountant and am not privy to the Church's finances, but I'm honestly curious how much of that $100 Billion was tax exempt and how much wasn't. And if the Church is sitting on and investing all that money, why are members able to claim their donations on their taxes as charitable contributions? If you're simply sitting on and investing all those billions of dollars, it doesn't look like a lot of charity is going on? How about we look at the percentage of the Church's wealth that actually goes toward charitable causes and apply that percentage to the amount of your 10% that you are able to deduct from your taxes each year. The line between charitable contributions and dues is not that fine.

I don’t disagree that having that much money doesn’t look great for a church or charity, but the church is clearly in compliance with all tax laws pertaining to its holdings. It’s no different than Harvard having a $40 billion endowment. Why is Harvard holding into that much money when they could use it for charitable causes? Why are donations to Harvard tax deductible.


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[Bo Diddley]

It's a reservoir of funds, just as any person or organization needs to be financially solvent. All their expenditures are charitable, but you can't expect them to execute those funds all at once. Again, a world-wide church. It's all about being conservative, and scale of operations.

[Non Sequitur]

I wonder if there is a way to discover whether there is "a lot of charity going on"?

https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/...g.pdf?lang=eng

^ that's the 2020 annual report for LDS charities. It's publicly available to anyone with a computer. There is even a mobile version of the report available for download. You can find it here:

https://www.latterdaysaintcharities..../2020?lang=eng

Oh, and the church just dropped $20 million to secure 2 billion vaccines to be distributed by Unicef. "Latter-day Saint Charities becomes the single largest private sector donor to date to support UNICEF’s ACT-Accelerator and COVAX work":

https://www.unicef.org/press-release...lobal-covid-19

The Church does great work, no doubt, and in hindsight I should have kept my opinions to myself. In the past I was much better at holding my tongue in this forum, because I was an outsider and didn't have a dog in fight. Now, I'm married to a TRH and have been dragged back into the culture to a degree and out of courtesy do not air my grievances with my wife. Even though my now hour a week obligation gains me a little standing to kvetch, I'll try harder to hold my tongue.

[Pelado]

The Church does great work, no doubt, and in hindsight I should have kept my opinions to myself. In the past I was much better at holding my tongue in this forum, because I was an outsider and didn't have a dog in fight. Now, I'm married to a TRH and have been dragged back into the culture to a degree and out of courtesy do not air my grievances with her. Even though my now hour a week obligation gains me a little standing to kvetch, I'll try harder to hold my tongue.

There's no need to hold your tongue.

$100 billion is certainly a lot of money. It's not a particularly surprising phenomenon considering the Church's history, tendencies, and counsel:

Live within your means. Get out of debt. Keep out of debt. Lay by for a rainy day which has always come and will come again. Practice and increase your habits of thrift, industry, economy, and frugality.

https://abn.churchofjesuschrist.org/...stion?lang=eng

A sizeable portfolio is the natural result of following their own advice (as AA mentioned earlier). And the greater the portfolio, the greater the income from that portfolio which should allow them to increase their spending on charitable purposes.

That said, it's fair to ask whether the portfolio needs to be as big as it is. Maybe they could have relieved some human suffering earlier rather than later by using some of that money instead of using it to build the portfolio. On the other hand, maybe the reserve fund is too small. If the Church did not receive any donations, how long could it sustain its activities using just the reserves?

[Jeff Lebowski]

The Church does great work, no doubt, and in hindsight I should have kept my opinions to myself. In the past I was much better at holding my tongue in this forum, because I was an outsider and didn't have a dog in fight. Now, I'm married to a TRH and have been dragged back into the culture to a degree and out of courtesy do not air my grievances with my wife. Even though my now hour a week obligation gains me a little standing to kvetch, I'll try harder to hold my tongue.

Hey, you are welcome to come here and vent. We want you to have a happy marriage!

[falafel]

The Church does great work, no doubt, and in hindsight I should have kept my opinions to myself. In the past I was much better at holding my tongue in this forum, because I was an outsider and didn't have a dog in fight. Now, I'm married to a TRH and have been dragged back into the culture to a degree and out of courtesy do not air my grievances with my wife. Even though my now hour a week obligation gains me a little standing to kvetch, I'll try harder to hold my tongue.

The forum was built on the airing of grievances!

[Northwestcoug]

That said, it's fair to ask whether the portfolio needs to be as big as it is. Maybe they could have relieved some human suffering earlier rather than later by using some of that money instead of using it to build the portfolio. On the other hand, maybe the reserve fund is too small. If the Church did not receive any donations, how long could it sustain its activities using just the reserves?

This really should be the focus of the argument. How much money should the church stockpile, before it increases its attention to the ever present suffering in both the membership and in the world? The related argument is also important; what is it saving for? Is there a realistic future scenario where the church would release the flood gates and pour out the money? Would the church be able to liquidate its portfolio and help the members through an apocalypse? Short of an apocalypse, would the church financially help members through an extended depression?

Wasn't there discussion before that the fund has reached a level that is essentially self-sustaining, given the current expenditures?

[tooblue]

The Church does great work, no doubt, and in hindsight I should have kept my opinions to myself. In the past I was much better at holding my tongue in this forum, because I was an outsider and didn't have a dog in fight. Now, I'm married to a TRH and have been dragged back into the culture to a degree and out of courtesy do not air my grievances with my wife. Even though my now hour a week obligation gains me a little standing to kvetch, I'll try harder to hold my tongue.

I shouldn't have been as snarky. Sorry for being a jerk. But I do have an anecdote to share ...

I met my new neighbour (house behind us) for the first time on Saturday mostly due to covid lockdowns. He was cutting his lawn and decided to cut all of our shared boulevard and even our front lawn. It was his way of saying thank you. In the winter my boys and I shovel our very long shared sidewalk including his portion. Our boys sometimes play hoops with his boys in the driveway, but we don't generally cross paths with him or his wife. They both work a lot. If the sidewalk isn't quickly cleared after a snowfall it can become a sheet of ice. The city will send out an icebreaker to clear it and charge each house $75.

I stepped out my front door to see who was cutting my lawn. He stopped and we greeted one another with an elbow bump. He explained he was originally from Ghana and then asked: "are you Christian—and maybe Mormon?" I confirmed we are members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints Then unsolicited he said: "your church is really growing in Ghana; Mormons are wonderful people because they take care of their people."

He then explained he is a truck driver here in Canada, the same profession he had in Africa. In fact in Ghana he used to make deliveries between distribution centres to one of the churchs' store houses. He then proceeded to—essentially—testify of the churches welfare program stating: "That is true Christianity—when a church can take care of its people."

[Moliere]

The Church does great work, no doubt, and in hindsight I should have kept my opinions to myself. In the past I was much better at holding my tongue in this forum, because I was an outsider and didn't have a dog in fight. Now, I'm married to a TRH and have been dragged back into the culture to a degree and out of courtesy do not air my grievances with my wife. Even though my now hour a week obligation gains me a little standing to kvetch, I'll try harder to hold my tongue.

No need to hold your tongue. I just found it funny the article took a somewhat negative tone to the church making money on GME. The whole point of the short squeeze was to hurt the hedge funds that were shorting the stock and to make individual investors a lot of money. The church helped accomplish that. The whole crowd should be happy about it.


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[YOhio]

Wonder how deep they’re into crypto. Some conference talk in the future will be about how in times of turbulence we need to HODL.

[All-American]

There's no need to hold your tongue.

$100 billion is certainly a lot of money. It's not a particularly surprising phenomenon considering the Church's history, tendencies, and counsel:



https://abn.churchofjesuschrist.org/...stion?lang=eng

A sizeable portfolio is the natural result of following their own advice (as AA mentioned earlier). And the greater the portfolio, the greater the income from that portfolio which should allow them to increase their spending on charitable purposes.

That said, it's fair to ask whether the portfolio needs to be as big as it is. Maybe they could have relieved some human suffering earlier rather than later by using some of that money instead of using it to build the portfolio. On the other hand, maybe the reserve fund is too small. If the Church did not receive any donations, how long could it sustain its activities using just the reserves?

The answer to that last question is not as long as you might think.

$100B is 2.5 Harvards of endowment. It would be pretty nicely sized if it funded nothing but the BYUs. It looks a bit more modest if was for the entire CES. And CES isn’t even the largest expense the church has.

[Bo Diddley]

The answer to that last question is not as long as you might think.

$100B is 2.5 Harvards of endowment. It would be pretty nicely sized if it funded nothing but the BYUs. It looks a bit more modest if was for the entire CES. And CES isn’t even the largest expense the church has.

Exactly. I think once a dollar amount reaches a certain amount, many are unable to wrap their heads around it and truly understand what it represents to a large organization.