Mobots seem to think their church is sooooo rich, comparing it to the Catholics. HOw rich are they, really?

The art on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel is worth more than the total value of all of Mormonism's tacky temples.

sonoma Wrote:
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> The art on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel is
> worth more than the total value of all of
> Mormonism's tacky temples.

I think this Sistine Chapel-compared-to-all-LDS-temples evaluation is very probably accurate.

But the LDS temples are only a tiny part of LDS assets. Add all of the real estate they own....to all of the businesses they own or control in some significant way or another...to all of the stocks they own or have some kind of power over through subsidiary or surrogate arrangements....to all of the other assets they very probably own which are either actually off-shore, or whose ownership/control is off-shore so far as the legalities go....

I can't calculate all of this.

For one thing: the extent of all of these holdings is unknown to the general public.

But certainly enough to BUY the Sistine Chapel...if Rome ever puts it on the market. (Nice new tourist draw for the LDS Church, right??? Staffed with all of those nice, smiling, fresh-faced LDS missionaries. ;) )



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 06/17/2014 09:19PM by tevai.

Sorry, I'm not one who buys into the Mormon Mega-Empire story.

Their main business is still religion, and they aren't very good at that.

As for their businesses, we have limited information. I'm sure that there are some good business-people in the cult, and I'm sure that there are plenty of bad ones too. They have no special powers, and are susceptible to bad decisions, just like All other corporations.

Their most visible business decisions lately have been ridiculously stupid, so...

sonoma Wrote:
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> Their main business is still religion, and they
> aren't very good at that.

I agree...but their main business is also in the process of failing because their customer base (both old customers and new ones) is cracking and diminishing.

They will be able to keep a viable customer group for another few decades...but corporations plan into the next century (and possibly beyond) if they are SMART corporations. They know full well that their plans are going to shift and change, but with the template in place, adjustments can be made for a very long time to keep Old Betsy at least chugging along. (I saw THREE of them on the freeway last Sunday!!! :D BEAUTIFULLY restored, and capable of running just fine in the slow lane...but NOBODY is going to try out antique cars on a NASCAR track.)

THEY know their customer base is changing and retracting (and will retract more as this century goes on). They're past the point of no return right now and they know it.

So I would be VERY surprised if, in fact, it turned out that religion WAS their "main" business...even right now, in 2014. It may be ONE of the "main" business arms, but I bet it is steadily falling compared to the others.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 06/17/2014 09:40PM by tevai.

These are the annual estimates from their "for profit" businesses. We may never know the true value of their non-profits. Publications, TV, Radio, etc... $1.2 Billion. Insurance $3.3 Billion. Deseret ranches $1 Billion. AgReserves (well the land, but they also donate most of the food and crops to bishops storehouse) but they make a profit of about $276 million.

The PCC is a non-profit, but they have to report visitors and ticket sales $23 million, but in 2010 rcvd another $36 million in tax free donations. make sure you read all 7 pages.
http://www.bloomberg.com/bw/articles/2012-07-10/how-the-mormons-make-money#p1

That doesn't make sense. There isn't a corporation in the world that has a market capitalization close enough to purchase the Sistine Chapel. The value of the land at the Vatican is about 1 billion dollars, put on that works of art by Bramante, Michelangelo, Rafael, and Bernini and you have yourself a multiple trillion dollar piece of real estate. Hell, a single painting by Cezanne sold for 250 million dollars. What makes you think that LDS inc with tithing revenue of only 5 billion dollars has the financial wherewithal to buy one of the two or three most significant pieces of art in the history of mankind?

Good point. All the temples that ever could be built could not equal out to priceless.

The Catholic Church has a billion member, so of course it is richer. However, much of its wealth is in iconic art that cannot be liquidated, like Notre Dame and Chartres Cathedrals. They also spend a great deal of money on Catholic Charities, that actually helps the poor. They provide food, clothing, housing and emergency assistance across the globe. They have many schools and universities around the world. The Big East is almost entirely Jesuit Colleges. The WCC has only 2 non-Catholic schools: Pepperdine and BYU.

They spend most of their money on their well trained, well educated clergy. Catholics have professionals to turn to for theological and social needs, not amateurs who spend most of their week as accountants, lawyers, plumbers or farmers.

They do all this from donations, not extorting 10% from their faithful or else. They don't audit them at the end of the year to get their gold pass renewed.

LDS, Inc. has a few universities, no schools, and only the top are paid. Their chapels and temples have little intrinsic value other than as real estate. Most of their wealth is invested in their for-profit businesses, land investments and financial assets. They are very good at turning a profit, but not at theology or pastoral services.

If I were a member, I'd be appalled at LDS,Inc.'s finances, not bragging about them. How dare they demand 10% from hard working families to give so little back in exchange. They are laying store wealth in corporate resources, not anything of benefit to members.

God asks his followers in the Bible to pay 10 percent of their increase. Don't worry about how others spend their money. It is none of your business.

God in the Bible didn't require anyone to pay *any amount of money* as tithing.

Tithing was a portion of *agricultural products* from 11 of the tribes given to the tribe of Levi, who had no land. So Biblical tithing was more like a property tax.

Fishermen owed nothing. Tradesmen, bureaucrats, or any other wage earners owed nothing.

Fashion police Wrote:
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> [TSCC is insanely wealthy, for a small church.]

Yup!!!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/17/2014 09:21PM by tevai.

Rich in mockery.
Poor in spirit.

Rich enough to have their money books closed and secret since the 1960's!!???

The families who own the Mormon church enjoy great wealth. As in all Ponzi schemes, the receipts pay the bills. A squeeze on tithing receipts could have a dramatic effect on company policy.

If there were financial problems with the LDS corporation, you would expect to see changes like:

Laying off non-essential workers
Suspending maintenance through layoffs
Selling idle assets
Relying more and more on "donated" labor
Fee increases to local wards

In fact, all these have happened. The question is whether these things have been done for greed or for need.

"According to U.S. law, religions have no obligation to open their books to the public, and the LDS Church officially stopped reporting any finances in the early 1960s. In 1997 an investigation by Time used cross-religious comparisons and internal information to estimate the church’s total value at $30 billion. The magazine also produced an estimate that $5 billion worth of tithing flows into the church annually, and that it owned at least $6 billion in stocks and bonds. The Mormon Church at the time said the estimates were grossly exaggerated, but a recent investigation by Reuters in collaboration with sociology professor Cragun estimates that the LDS Church is likely worth $40 billion today and collects up to $8 billion in tithing each year." (Ref. http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2012-07-10/how-the-mormons-make-money#p3 )

The problem with the Time article is that it is all income based, rather than expense based.

These numbers would be way off because of that.

It basically does not matter how much money is flowing in because we do not know the outflow, which I think is exponentially larger than LDS Inc projects.

Do not take their words for things. This is an organization that is built completely on misinformation, disinformation, and the misdirection of attention.

Look at their actions, as Don Bagley stated above which are the hallmark of any failing corporation.

This company has been a gold mine for a lot of families since JS and BY had their hands in it. Think about it, we have NEVER heard of a major embezzlement case in the state most known for mortgage, insurance and security fraud.

It is all about diversion. Let the stuffed suit, hand picked, display leadership live in fancy houses and fly the jet to divert attention. It will take attention away from the insiders and operating partners flying pallets of cash out of the country.

My guess is that most real estate, and assets owned by the company is severely leveraged. Not a problem when income cash flow is good, but in times of a "great apostasy" and falling revenues, can be an imploding Ponzi scheme.

LDS Inc keeps their books closed for because any investigation would reveal way too little money in the coffers, and no valid explanation why this is the case.

Yes the old guys are angry. They did not die soon enough and this thing will crumble on their watch.

I'm on board with Deco.

It is often assumed here that the cult hides their finances because the cult is embarrassingly rich.

When have Mormons ever been embarrassed by being too rich?

No, the Mormon cult hides its finances in order to hide corruption and fraud.

Utah is the Nigeria of the Americas. Fraud is part of the Mormon DNA.

There is no way that the cult is not rife with fraud and corruption.

If only there was a single whistle-blower who was willing to come forward...
I would love to see a Enron-esque Morg implosion during my lifetime!

They compare LDS, Inc. to Lutherans, that are a comparable membership in the US, but they have a paid clergy:

The first divergence between Mormon economics and that of other denominations is the tithe. Most churches take in the greater part of their income through donations. Very few, however, impose a compulsory 10% income tax on their members. Tithes are collected locally, with much of the money passed on informally to local lay leaders at Sunday services. "By Monday," says Elbert Peck, editor of Sunstone, an independent Mormon magazine, the church authorities in Salt Lake City "know every cent that's been collected and have made sure the money is deposited in banks." There is a lot to deposit. Last year $5.2 billion in tithes flowed into Salt Lake City, $4.9 billion of which came from American Mormons. By contrast, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, with a comparable U.S. membership, receives $1.7 billion a year in contributions. So great is the tithe flow that scholars have suggested it constitutes practically the intermountain states' only local counterbalance in an economy otherwise dominated by capital from the East and West coasts.

The true Mormon difference, however, lies in what the LDS church does with that money. Most denominations spend on staff, charity and the building and maintenance of churches; leaders will invest a certain amount--in the case of the Evangelical Lutherans, $152 million--as a pension fund, usually through mutual funds or a conservative stock portfolio. The philosophy is minimalist, as Lutheran pastor Mark Moller-Gunderson explains: "Our stewardship is not such that we grow the church through business ventures."

The Mormons are stewards of a different stripe. Their charitable spending and temple building are prodigious. But where other churches spend most of what they receive in a given year, the Latter-day Saints employ vast amounts of money in investments that TIME estimates to be at least $6 billion strong. Even more unusual, most of this money is not in bonds or stock in other peoples' companies but is invested directly in church-owned, for-profit concerns, the largest of which are in agribusiness, media, insurance, travel and real estate. Deseret Management Corp., the company through which the church holds almost all its commercial assets, is one of the largest owners of farm and ranchland in the country, including 49 for-profit parcels in addition to the Deseret Ranch. Besides the Bonneville International chain and Beneficial Life, the church owns a 52% holding in ZCMI, Utah's largest department-store chain. (For a more complete list, see chart.) All told, TIME estimates that the Latter-day Saints farmland and financial investments total some $11 billion, and that the church's nontithe income from its investments exceeds $600 million.

I think they are probably worth closer to $100B if you include all their property. Their expenses are so low compared to their free income of tithing as well as tax-exempt status on the tithing. That coupled with their businesses' considerable income suggests that they are worth far more than anybody realizes.

The continued buying of huge amounts of Florida, having the largest cattle ranch in the USA, large holdings in Hawaii, hundreds of for-profit businesses and who knows how big of a stock portfolio that has grown over the years from investments and continued pumping in of free tithing $ has got to total an enormous sum.

Supposedly Michael Quinn is working on a book dealing with the Church's finances. Perhaps that might shed some light on this.

i lived in a small town in upstate new your and one sunday the tithing moneys were deposited to the banc. just so happens the catholic church did their banking there also and the tithing was by mistake credited to the catholic account, the catholic could not belive there was so much from so few

deco has repeatedly claimed that the LDS property holdings are severely leveraged. I have yet to see a single shred of evidence to back that up. I'd like to see some documentation, or insider testimony. All I'm getting is innuendo.

It isn't their properties that are leveraged it is their revenue that is leveraged. That is how most leverage works. You can borrow according to your ability to repay, not according to your net worth. The net worth acts as collateral against failure to perform.

Deco cannot provide proof beyond the fact that every large corporation in the world leverages their receivables for cash flow. LDS inc closes their books and thus hides actions that for a corporation would be normal, but for LDS inc would be highly hypocritical.

The artwork in the Sistine chapel is virtually priceless. Estimates on the artwork alone range from $500 billion to the trillions, depending on who is asked. The U.S. Catholic church spends $150 billion A YEAR just on hospitals and higher education.

The Mormon church is a zit on the ass of the Catholic elephant.

I completely agree!

My personal opinion (slightly OT) is that the typical TBM believes (or is led to believe) that the church is doing *OK*, but spends almost all of its resources on charity, missionaries, temples, and other "worthy" works. Either they don't know about the giant ranch and land holdings, or if they do, they think that what is produced on them goes in-house to the Bishop's storehouse for the needy.

In other words, it doesn't matter how rich the church is, as long as the whole "humble" thing makes people think it's just getting by on donations, with maybe a common sense rainy day fund....of about 100 billion dollars.

It'd be fairly easy to suss out the annual tithing-related income stream. Of the 15M claimed members, only about 5M are active. Of the 5M active, a substantial part are retired, children, or unemployed. Workforce participation rate is about 65% at the moment. The LDS church is unique in that its constituents live slightly longer and also have more kids, which alters the demographics a bit. But assuming of that 5M, 3M are in the Us (official church stats have US membership at 6.7M/15M, so a bit less than half; that said, US membership is also more active than international).

So 3M is your population; among that are likely only about 1.3M tithepayers. For this number, look at Utah as an example; in a population of 2.9M, only 1.2M work (see here: http://www.bls.gov/oes/2013/may/oes_ut.htm for source). Included in that calculation are part-timers, teenagers, etc. Using the Utah mean (about 50k) and assuming that every active US family is tithing full-time (at 5k/employed person/year), we arrive at only about 6B in annual income for the church. Which is nothing to sneeze at, but it's not exactly an empire.

I doubt it's that high, as there are a lot of folks that pay on net, do in-kind tithing, etc. A more realistic estimate is probably about $4B.

In terms of outflow, the temples, buildings, maintenance, etc., are not cheap.

no the tempels are definatley not cheap! they are remodeling the one in the town i live in, make it fancier. 23 milion no problema, and hire a lds contractor while your at it he gets a good payday. The Jw's are voluntary donation and everything is non-profit they distribute more liturature for free than any organization and ive never seen a super rich one.

My take:
They're extremely wealthy when compared to most US church denominations.
They're not all that wealthy when compared to the Catholic church, or to any multi-national (or even entirely domestic) decent-sized corporation.

Which puts them in the category of "tallest of the dwarfs" sort of thing. Meh.

What's distressing about their wealth is how it contradicts their claims of being "charitable," and how it's extorted from the members 10% at a time.

I did a very rough estimate using the extrapolating the data from the New Zealand Charities Register. According to the church's own membership numbers (highly inflated) they have 109,920 members in NZ. They had a net income of $10.46M and a total asset value of $199.7M. By using the church's membership numbers the New Zealand member population goes into the overall church's population 140 times. (15M/109920 = 140) so I multiplied the income and assets by 140 to arrive at:

LDS NET Income = $1.46B/year in NZ dollars (this is the gross income minus expenses)
LDS GROSS income = $9.7B/year in NZ dollars

Total Church assets = $27.9B in NZ dollars



When exchanged for USD the numbers are:

Total NET LDS income = $980M/year
Total Gross LDS income = $6.5B/year
Total Church assets = $18.7B

I know it is way off because much of the extra church holdings are in the U.S. so the total church value would be much greater. Add to that the fact that there are CRUT accounts in the U.S. that help uber-rich Mormons to not pay their taxes so the income is probably too low as well. Still, there are many Mormons in third-world countries who's revenues would be significantly less.

Like I said, a rough extrapolation.
BTW - hats off to the New Zealand government for giving transparency to "charities" such as the morg.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 07/11/2015 03:14PM by praydude.

BTW this equals about $1,500/active member/year of tithe income GIVEN church activity rate is 30%. Still kinda low as far as tithing goes...are most active mormons below the poverty line?

Considering only ONE financial aspect of the church, the fact that it is the largest single property owner in the state of Florida, I would venture that the church is VERY well off.

Perhaps a good thing their finances are not revealed. Member and non-member alike would collapse and not be able to get up due to shock over the church's wealth.

You can never trust analysis on this site of such a topic. People have an ax to grind with the Mormon Church so their evaluation is obviously biased and since the church doesn't release financials its just guesses in the dark. Sure its evil they compel tithing from their members and who knows what else they do. But that's why at its heart its the most American of churches because its a corporate business fronting as a church. Still how many wealthy corporations have any ethics beyond what they do for PR. In fact I think the more unethical and selfish the better off the business. Just wait 50 years from now they'll have adapted better, be more mainstream but still with a focus on making money. They'll be richer than any other American denomination and an influential political force. Its a novel notion to do religion to strictly benefit others but in reality to conquer you have to be ruthless which they do well.

It doesn't matter if they are worth one dollar or a hundred billion dollars. It's a dodge and a swindle that uses religion as a means to an end. Running The Church costs LD$, Inc. very little money but gives tax exempt status.

The real question is who is running the show behind the scenes where the money is.

However rich they are, my question is, to what end? The old codgers who run it are remunerated quite handsomely, but are not the super-wealthy. But the church just packs it away, investing it into one of their many for-profit activities, and making more of it. To what end? Where are they going with all this?

Since the church is a corporate sole..Thomas S. Monson should be on the cover of forbes magazine and given credit as one of the wealthiest men on planet earth.

I have a hypothetical question. The church has established two closed corporations - one is the corporation of the first presidency and the other is the one created around the presiding bishopric. These are the only two that I'm aware of.

Suppose some time in the future the membership drops to under 10,000 members because the evidence is now undisputable, even by the church hierarchy, that the doctrines are untrue. Membership continues to decline and attendance at meetings is near zero. They have endless unoccupied builds and high maintenance costs. The first presidency decides to disband the church, yet they have billions in assets.

The members are not stockholders so who would control the assets and how would they be distributed?

The President of the Church would as he is the "Corporate Sole".

Come on everybody sing along now,

"When you look at others with their land and gold, think that Christ has promised you his wealth untold..".

What happy consolation this sacred song brings for members who struggle with their finances after paying their tithes and offerings (which obviously come first).



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 01/07/2017 10:07AM by jstone.

They aren't broke brook- unless you need help- that's the bottom line.

Like this old post, and burnt toast, it just won't go away (soon enough).

Mormons likely contribute more on average per member than Catholics do. The average church contribution in the U.S. has been estimated at 2.6%. Catholics almost certainly come in somewhat below that on average. I've seen figures in the past that put Mormons overall at 5%.

The Mormon church is making a healthy profit in the U.S. and in Canada. My best guess (based on looking at British figures) is that they are breaking even in Europe. South America, Asia, and Africa are likely running at a loss. As long as the North American saints can support the church overseas, there won't be a problem. If American tithing falls off markedly, look out.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/08/2017 11:40AM by summer.