Here's the now-closed thread on Church Finances:
http://exmormon.org/phorum/read.php?2,529412

In this previous thread, several good leads were provided in answer to this request:

Hi folks. My name's Peter Henderson and I'm a reporter for Reuters News. I've been doing some stories about the LDS church -- here's one about the church dealing with people falling away from the faith: http://reut.rs/xCcGs9. Now I'm curious about church finances -- how much money the church has, gets, and spends. I'm looking for everything from lists of assets (I've seen some on this site) to anecdotes. I welcome any help, from tips which I'd follow up to links/documents, which I could use after verifying. My email is peter.henderson@thomsonreuters.com and my phone is 415 677 2541, if you prefer to communicate privately. [end copy-paste of request]

I wanted to provide to Peter a mini-example of the way in which the LDS Church manipulates members, (and its organizational structure), to rake in more tax-free dollars. I had in mind the epic tale of how LDS Inc. got rid of warehouses full of old Book of Mormon copies, while simultaneously requiring all members to buy new copies.

There was a program that required members to buy not just new copies for themselves, but also for everyone they knew. They were to paste in personal family stuff and give the BoM away.

Mission Presidents were required to buy crates of the old BoM for their missions.

The printing office of LDS Inc. nevertheless wrote a bunch of the old copies off as a loss.

This issue was discussed (perhaps more than once), but I can't find the thread(s).

Any help would be appreciated.

http://www.amazon.com/The-Book-Mammon-Corporation-Mormons/dp/1451553706/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top/188-2266154-0064804

It's the "Book of Mammon" which I haven't read, but has a fair amount about the workings of LDS, Inc. written by a former employee. If I remember correctly, it's written by an anthropologist and in an esoteric style (maybe he wanted to cloak things a bit to avoid getting ex'd?).

It may be in this book that he recounts how LDS, Inc. has a huge inventory of fancy leatherbound scriptures to move and they sold them off by making a big push from the pulpit by the GAs and their minions.

I am sure someone here has read and is a better source of info than me.


LDS, Inc. has not released a financial statement of how they've spent their money since the late 50s. Good luck getting to the bottom that opaque (and fake) organization.