Subject:

FINANCIAL INFORMATION OF THE MORMON CHURCH IN CANADA IS NOW POSTED FOR ALL TO SEE!!!!

Date:

Feb 22, 2007

Author:

Adieu LDS

I was reading this mornings paper and I saw an advertisement from the Government of Canada that the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) has launched a website called “Giving to charity: Information for donors.

I found the site and entered “Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and 452 matches were found.

http://www.cra.gc.ca/charities

http://www.cra-arc.gc.ca/ebci/haip/srch/sec/SrchPrintRender-e?bn=119223758RR0001&fpe=2005-12-31&formId=19&name=THE+CHURCH+OF+JESUS+CHRIST+OF+LATTER-DAY+SAINTS+IN+CANADA



Information on this site has been posted with the intent that it be readily available for personal and public non-commercial use. It can be reproduced, in part or in whole and by any means, without charge or further permission from the CRA

It appears that the information is broken down into units. I did find the main financial information as THE CHURCH OF JESUS CHRIST OF LATTER-DAY SAINTS IN CANADA

Here is the information posted.

Financial Information

Assets
Cash, bank accounts, and short-term investments $ 85,008,000

Amounts receivable from all others. $ 2,213,000
Inventories $ 1,200,000
Capital assets (at cost or fair market value) $ 707,410,000
Other assets $ 216,000
Total assets $ 796,047,000


Liabilities
Accounts payable and accrued liabilities. $ 2,377,000
Other liabilities $ 108,438,000
Total liabilities $ 110,815,000



Revenue

Total eligible amount of tax-receipted gifts $ 1,672,737
Total amount received from other registered charities $ 122,552,263
Interest and investment income $ 5,174,000
Other revenue $ 1,069,000
Total revenue $ 130,468,000


Expenditures

Travel and vehicle $ 2,741,261
Office supplies and expenses $ 1,123,835
Professional and consulting fees $ 5,659
Salaries, wages, benefits, and honoraria $ 14,052,961
Amortization of capitalized assets $ 1,777,296
Other expenditures $ 86,972,988
Total expenditures before gifts to qualified donees $ 106,674,000
Total charitable programs expenditures included in line $ 90,824,989
Total management and administration expenditures $ 15,849,011
Total gifts to qualified donees, $ 10,151,567
Total specified gifts to qualified donees $ -1
Total expenditures $ 453

 

 

Subject:

Some analysis ...

Date:

Feb 22 15:17

Author:

bob mccue

Thanks for posting that. Fascinating information. I went looking for the same thing a couple of years ago, and could not find it. All I could find with a 440 individual ward entities, which is pretty much useless.

Here are a few off-the-cuff comments to help those who might not be as familiar as I am with how financial statements, and charities in Canada, work.

The reported revenues ($130 million) are comprised mostly of contributions from other charitable organizations ($122 million). These would likely have been funds transferred from individual wards (also registered as charities) to an aggregator charity of some kind. Add to that something over $5 million in investment income, and a few million dollars in direct revenue and you have a total of $130 million. The direct revenue to the aggregator entity may be attributable to donations made by individuals wealthy enough that they do not wish to have their charitable contributions scrutinized by their local bishopric. There is a facility for the donation of funds in this fashion, as well as for the contribution of stocks and other properties, bequests by Will, et cetera.

The expenditures are also interesting. The $14 million in salaries would likely relate, for the most part, to the Church educational system employees. Additional salaries would be paid to cleaning and maintenance staff, those in charge of constructing new buildings, et cetera. I doubt that any of the general authority's salaries would be run through this account.

Total expenditures are equal to $110 million. Of those, $90 million were expended on charitable activities. This would include new buildings, missionary work in Canada, donations to needy members, et cetera.

I thought the 10 million donated to other charitable organizations was interesting. That number surprises me. I would be interested to know where it went. Canadians, by themselves, could not possibly have donated that much money for the purpose of international relief or other special funds the Mormon Church provides for that kind of thing. It is possible, however, that because significant surpluses are accumulating in Canada, that the Mormon church exercised its discretion to make significant international donations out of its Canadian funds in order to give effect to the wishes of people in other places who also donated funds.

To understand this, consider the way in which missionary work functions. There are limitations on the extent to which charitable funds raised in Canada can be used for purposes outside of Canada. For example, monies contributed for the purpose of missionary work with regard to Canadian Mormon kids who go on missions is used for missionary work in Canada, and the Canadian kids who serve their missions elsewhere are funded through other (non-Canadian) Mormon revenue sources. Once funds have been donated to the Mormon Church, you can take from one pocket and put into another with a huge amount of discretion.

The eye-popping number from my point of view is the total assets on the balance sheet, as well as the cash balance on account. The Mormon Church in Canada has accumulated $85 million in liquid assets. Financial statements are required to be prepared on the basis of the lower of cost or fair market value. Hence, the $700 plus million dollars of capital assets can be sure to far under estimate the real value of those assets. This means that the Mormon Church in Canada has, conservatively, far in excess of $1 billion in assets under its belt, with something close to $100 million in liquid assets.

I also note that the Mormon church owns significant commercial (that is, noncharitable) assets in Canada which would not be required to be disclosed on the financial statements we have been looking at. These include one of the largest ranches in the world, located in Southern Alberta. When the value of these assets is considered, the little old Mormon Church in Canada comes into view as a financial juggernaut.

The Cumorah Project indicates the Canada has a little over 100,000 members. That sounds about right to me. On the face of those numbers, the financial disclosure makes sense. If there are 100,000 members, we will be generous and say that 50% are active. If we have 50,000 active Mormons, about half of those will be adults. That means we have 25,000 active adults. Half of those will be serious tithe payers. This brings us down to about 12,500. If you divide $125 million by 12,500 active adults, you get about $10,000. Does the average Mormon adult tithe payer in Canada pay $10,000 and ties and donations per year? Probably not. What this means is that there are either some Mormons who pay an awful lot of tithing, or part of that $125 million is coming into the Mormon coffers as a result of business assets owned in Canada. In either event, we are close to a full explanation.

Here's the interesting concept for active Mormons in Canada. And by extension, my bet is that we could extend this to active Mormons in the United States. The Mormon Church in the United States is far wealthier than its Canadian branch.

If you take those same 25,000 active Mormon adults, and distribute the $85 million in cash to them, this comes out to $3,400 each. And, I would conservatively put the Canadian Mormon churches assets at a fair market value of $2 billion, without considering the value of its business assets. If you divide $2,000,000,000 by 25,000, you get $80,000.

Many Mormons have more equity tied up in Mormonism than in the houses and investments combined.

Here is a personal story to bring the lunacy of this situation into focus.

When my wife and I were struggling university students in Edmonton, she worked for the first eight months of our marriage until shortly before the birth of our first child. As a result, during our second year of marriage (after the baby was born) we received an income tax refund $700. For us, in those days, this was a huge amount of money. We were in student loan debt up to our eyeballs; I had approximately 5 years of university left; my wife had just quit her job; we had a brand new baby and needed all kinds of stuff in that regard; we had virtually no furniture and what we did have was pathetic; our car limped from repair a repair; et cetera. You get the picture.

In those days, a separate building fund was still maintained by the Mormon Church. And, the Mormon Church in Edmonton was trying to raise money for a new stake center, and the funds were not rolling in as required. Our ward was mostly a student ward, but the bishop was instructed in any event to make a special plea for building funds. He did his duty.

After listening to him, and having the tremendous religious faith both my wife and I had at that time, we went home and did as he requested. That is, we took the matter of whether we should make an additional financial sacrifice to the Mormon Church to our Heavenly Father in prayer. Oddly, we both felt we should do that. So we took $500 of the $700 income tax refund, and gave it to a building fund for Mormon chapel on the outskirts of Edmonton that I don't believe I have ever even seen.

And we did this for a religious institution that was no doubt at the time (as well as now) awash in cash. Blind faith is a wonderful thing. It facilitates quasi-fraud in religious circles (as just described) as well as bad investment decisions.

Tithing is simply a form of taxation. It is a way of dealing with the financial needs of a community of people. The history of tithing shows that it has been calculated in a vast number of different ways in the various religious communities that used this concept. The concept of the tithe has changed within the Mormon community as well as countless others.

However, just as government bureaucrats tend to do whatever they can to maximize the budgets under their administration, religious bureaucrats to the same thing. And, if you don't have to account for how much money you have on hand, how much money you need, how you spend your money, etc. it is a lot easier to increase the size of your empire.

This explains why in the early days of Mormonism, financial statements were made available to the members of the Mormon Church, and why that practice was eventually discarded. This is one of the main reasons for which religious institutions that use democratic principles of disclosure and the delegation of power from the members to the leaders, tend to be more healthy for those involved.

As abuses of this kind become better known, I expect to see pressure mount for reform within institutions such as the Mormon Church. These things, however, happen on a glacial time scale.

best,
bob

 

 

 

Subject:

Impressions from a CFO [Chief Financial Officer]

Date:

Feb 22, 2007

Author:

raghib

I asked a friend of mine, who is the CFO of an international company, to give me his impressions of the numbers. I did not tell him where the numbers came from - only that it was a non-profit organization. Here is what he told me:

I would think a non-profit would have some type of endowment which would be classified as long-term investments; this only shows the 85 million in short term which usually means low yielding investments

Huge amount of capital assets; maybe they include investments in here, but I would read that as being property and equipment. If that is the case, they must have a bunch of buildings or something. If they don’t have investments in here, it sure seems like a lot of moola here.

I’m guessing other liabilities contains donations that haven’t been paid out yet, but if its not, that seems like a lot of liabilities. Mortgage on a palatial headquarters, maybe?

Other expenditures of 87 million sure is a big amount to be classified as other.

It seems kind of odd that they’ve only paid out 10 million in other donations. If the other $105 million didn’t go to any sort of philanthropic stuff, what was it spent on?

If that is the complete list of expenditures, it looks like they spent about 15 million less than they brought in which I find odd. I thought most non-profits try and put all the money to ‘work’ as soon as they can.

 

 

 

Subject:

Can one of you accountant types explain this?

Date:

Feb 22 10:34

Author:

BtGR

$14M for salaries? That would suggest the church employs at least 140 well-compensated people in Canada. That sounds like a lot of employees for such a low population country particularly without a large LDS population overall.

 

 

Subject:

"Other expenditures" - that's a great category. n/t

 

Subject:

Wow

Date:

Feb 22 10:40

Author:

NoToJoe

I wish this was available in the US as well.

$796M in assets, I would assume mostly real estate. $85M in cash on hand......

Collecting about $125M in tithing but burning through most of it.

Who are the qualified donees that received $10M????

 

Subject:

Whoally Shmokes! I'm in the wrong business! ... nt

 

Subject:

Re: FINANCIAL INFORMATION OF THE MORMON CHURCH IN CANADA IS NOW POSTED FOR ALL TO SEE!!!!

Date:

Feb 22 11:21

Author:

reve

My guess is the "donees" are the recipients of Fast Offering funds which were donated over and above Tithing, plus a few charitable donations the morg made to other causes.

 

Subject:

How big is the church in Canada in terms of both membership and

Date:

Feb 22 11:29

Author:

LongGone2

where it might fall in relation to other similar organizations, i.e. Catholics, Buddists, Anglicans, etc. (if of course anyone can come up with it without hours of research)....thanks.

Oh, and what's with the vehicles and travel? And salaries and benefits? I thought these people ALL worked without recompense.

 

Subject:

Total expenditures = $ 453 ??

Date:

Feb 22 11:30

Author:

OU812

Adieu LDS wrote:
> Total expenditures $ 453

What does that mean? Did you leave out an M ?

 

Subject:

Re: Total expenditures = $ 453 ??

Date:

Feb 22 12:21

Author:

Adieu LDS

Check out this site:

http://www.cra-arc.gc.ca/ebci/haip/srch/sec/SrchPrintRender-e?bn=119223758RR0001&fpe=2005-12-31&formId=19&name=THE+CHURCH+OF+JESUS+CHRIST+OF+LATTER-DAY+SAINTS+IN+CANADA

 

Subject:

I'd like to compare this to the UK stuff, anyone have that link?

Date:

Feb 22 12:01

Author:

idolator

http://www.charity-commission.gov.uk/

 

 

Subject:

Bottom Line

Date:

Feb 22 12:44

Author:

South

So let me get this straight...

$130,468,000 in Revenue
$106,674,000 in Expenditures

Hmmm... what's wrong with this picture?

-South

 

Subject:

Follow the, ummmm....Profit! n/t

 

Subject:

Questionable description of their charitable works from the same site.....

Date:

Feb 22 12:55

Author:

Vicky

Under "Ongoing Programs" the following is listed:

1. WE HOLD RELIGIOUS MEETINGS ON SUNDAYS
2. WE SPONSOR YOUTH AND LADIES PROGRAMS
3. WE PROVIDE FOR THE NEEDY
4. WE VISIT THE ELDERLY
5. WE SPONSOR BOY SCOUTS PROGRAMS AND OTHER RELATED ACTIVITIES.
THE PRIMARY PURPOSE OF THE CHARITY IS TO TEACH THE RELIGIOUS DOCTRINES OF THE CHURCH OF JESUS CHRIST OF LATTER-DAY SAINTS AND TO HELP PEOPLE IMPROVE THEIR LIVES AND SATISFY THEIR TEMPORAL NEEDS BY ENCOURAGING EDUCATION, IMPROVING EMPLOYMENT AND PROVIDING WELFARE ASSISTANCE

I had to laugh when I read that the Morg is "encouraging education" as aside from a single YW lesson that said if you aren't married yet then go ahead and go to University, there was no encouragement for higher learning at all. But I suppose changing it to "engouraging education for our men-folk while continuing to make our women-folk feel more spiritual through jello study and casserole-nomics" wouldn't make them look as good ;)

 

Subject:

Notice the LDS registration date with Rev Canada.

Date:

Feb 22 13:04

Author:

Anon

1998-06-23 So....

What does that mean for years before 1998. They got a free pass in claiming income?

Inquiring minds would like to know...

 

Subject:

Re: Notice the LDS registration date with Rev Canada.

Date:

Feb 22 14:14

Author:

winter

If by "free pass on claiming income" you mean that they didn't have to pay tax on it, they still get a free pass. They just have to disclose their charitable income and expenditures. That has nothing to do with tax liability.

If you are referring to public disclosure, then you, me, and all other private individuals get a free pass - we don't have to divulge our income to the public at large, as LDS Inc must now do (at least in Canada).

So they admit to having the better part of a billion dollars in Canada. Sometime this year the 2005 Canada census religious affiliation numbers should be out, and we can find out how many Mormons there are. Woo hoo.

winter

 

 

Subject:

Re: FINANCIAL INFORMATION OF THE MORMON CHURCH IN CANADA IS NOW POSTED FOR ALL TO SEE!!!!

Date:

Feb 22 14:25

Author:

Zebicats

From what I can see those results are for the LDS company and do not include any info on trusts or other companies that are owned by the LDS corp.

The LDS is like a huge tree of hundreds of interconnected companies and trusts. It would take a forensic accountant years to trace the money and connections.

 

 

Subject:

WOW!!! Fascinating analysis, Bob. Thanks :) n/t

Date:

Feb 22 15:33

Author:

Vicky (I don't feel like logging in this afternoon)

Mail Address:

 

 

Subject:

Bob, wouldn't it work like this for the 10 million donated to other charitable organizations?

Date:

Feb 22 16:27

Author:

OU812

bob mccue wrote:
> The reported revenues ($130 million) are comprised mostly of contributions from other charitable organizations ($122 million). These would likely have been funds transferred from individual wards (also registered as charities) to an aggregator charity of some kind . . .

> I thought the 10 million donated to other charitable organizations was interesting. That number surprises me. I would be interested to know where it went.

You said most of the income of $130 million from other charitable organizations likely is funds transferred from individual wards. Why are you mystified by the 10 million donated to other charitable organizations? Wouldn't this be money transferred back to individual wards for various purposes?

 

Subject:

Re: Some analysis ...

Date:

Feb 22 17:59

Author:

Some Lady

Very interesting. And, it's really not at all funny, but I have to admit that my first reaction was to laugh when I read Bob's, ". . . we took the matter of whether we should make an additional financial sacrifice to the Mormon Church to our Heavenly Father in prayer. Oddly, we both felt we should do that." Maybe I laughed to relieve the stress of remembering how that mindset drove my thoughts and actions for decades . . . or maybe it was the way he put it. :)

 

Subject:

By this analysis the mormon church as a whole is probably worth over $120 billion.

Date:

Feb 22 20:29

Author:

can't log in here

And yet when my home was damaged by both tornado and flood, I was injured, and I lost my job, my bishop refused to assist our family with groceries or anything. He said the first presidency had issued a statement that they were afraid that the welfare program was overloaded and would bankrupt the church. Even then, not knowing the financials of the church, I thought that was preposterous.

 

Subject:

As per Bob's analysis, most Mormons would vote to liquidate

Date:

Feb 22 17:11

Author:

winter

and distribute the assets if they knew it might net them a couple hundred grand a couple. Ah, what a pleasant fantasy! :)

winter

 

Subject:

What year is this report?

Date:

Feb 22 17:35

Author:

Canadian

Need the year as they built a few temples a few years back.
Also it's interesting to see the amount of money the Church has. Will this cause an influx of new members seeking to get money from the church in the form of "help?" Also how could the Church turn down a member who needed help after seeing these numbers?

 

Subject:

Wow. I just checked out my local wards...

Date:

Feb 22 18:21

Author:

South

I live in Magrath, and it seems that our quaint little bedroom community has donated 2 MILLION DOLLARS to the church in 2005.

Wow.

I wonder if they realize how much they're giving up?

...or what money like that could do if it stayed in the community.

-South

 

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