I am a NeverMo. This is a sincere question:

What does TSCC actually DO with its income?? Do they build/own
all the buildings down to the ward level? Do they pay local upkeep/maintenance? What about overseas where they may not have a lot of members to milk?

What about educational materials? Provided?

Who gets a salary?

How does the Morg actually function financially? They must take in hundreds of millions a year; where does it go?

The Mormon church offers as little as possible in the way of financial transparency.

They do own pretty much all the buildings they use, but get the local members to maintain them as much as possible.

And the upper tiers of Mormon leadership receive adequate-to-generous living expenses, while the leaders at lower levels are unpaid "volunteers," who serve as requested by their superiors.

Other posters can offer more information and fill in details.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/04/2016 01:21AM by lurking in.

They audited themselves "independently" and found themselves to be free of any wrongdoing. This is always announced by a flunky at conference.

Hey Nevmo! Your question is a huge one and it is also one we ALL want to know the answer to.

The church is under no legal obligation to disclose their finances here in the U.S. Fortunately for us the UK and other British Commonwealth countries have enacted laws that give more transparency to their citizens as to what the church does with their tax-free contributions. Extrapolating the data from these countries it appears that the annual church income is in the Billions not millions. Still we will never know for sure, unless the laws in the U.S. change.

Keep in mind that BYU keeps churning out the tax attorneys. Mormons have created tax-shelters for millionaires that provide the church with a lot of income but also provide a huge tax shelter to the wealthy member. These accounts used to be called C.R.U.D. accounts but they were made illegal in 2001 and replace ed with the C.R.U.T. accounts. They still offer huge incentives for ultra-wealthy people to give 10% to the church and keep the rest sans taxes.

Wonder why Mitt Romney was able to only pay an effective tax rate of 14%? He practically invented the thing.


In my opinion, this is the reason why the church will continue for generations to come - it's a fantastic way to clear your millions of any meaningful tax burden. The church gets their cut and the mega-wealthy keep the rest. Think of all the super rich mormons that are out there and you get the idea.

Wonder why these things are never outlawed completely? Most Senators and many Congressmen also have their own accounts.

I think the estimated income to the church is around 6 (?) billion per year, but no one knows for sure. The church is not required to disclose its financials in the U.S., and church authorities choose not to. I've seen church budgets from Great Britain and Canada. The church also has a lot of for-profit ventures including businesses and real estate.

Everything local is done on a volunteer basis up through stake president. I think with the next step up (Area 70,) they start to get a "stipend." We've seen the figures for the "stipend" given to Mission Presidents, and it is quite generous. It covers every conceivable living expense including ordinary expenses such as housing and food, but also items such as gifts and college tuition for the MP's kids. The myth that church authorities sell to the membership is that all positions in the church are unpaid. But this is simply not true.

In my opinion, the numbers do not add up. The Mormon church has a healthy income, one of the best per capita for any church. It does not pay any local salaries, which is a huge expense for any other church. Yes, there are certain other expenses such as missions, subsidies to BYU, and temple building and maintenance, but I still think that leaves a lot of money unaccounted for.

Thanks much for the information! It seems to be about what I thought. Hard to believe, but what I expected. It is just unbelievable that they don't DO something with all those resources.

Just think what they could accomplish! The good they could do, the people they could feed.

To be fair, the church makes a lot of humanitarian efforts although I'm sure the cost pales in comparison to the revenue.

They tag along on the shirt tails of other churches and organizations, such as The Red Cross, but then word statements and press releases to sound as if they are the ones actually heading up and funding various humanitarian outreaches. They also make sure their members wear obnoxious yellow shirts announcing their presence while working on projects headed by other groups. These are individual members doing a good deed but the LDS church insists that the credit goes to their corporation/church.

The Mormon church claims to give generously to humanitarian work but never reveals the actual financial figures comparing their *total* income to the amount they give to charity work *outside* of their church. What little is known does not indicate generosity on their part. Even within their own church, they limit their charity to "worthy" members who receive little and also have to work hours in a bishop's storehouse, cannery, etc. Precious little comes for free from the Mormon church

Exactly. They like to brag about what humanitarian aid they do offer, but it is truly insignificant considering the resources available.

Check out iwasastranger.lds.org. They point people there to find opportunities to serve, etc..., but the "church" is offering nothing. The site includes some scriptures and links to some talks, generic ideas on how to get involved and links to real charities that actually do some good in the world. Mormons aren't embarrassed that their "church" is directing them to Adventist and Catholic charities for opportunities to provide real service?

Steve,
They DO do something with all of those resources.

They buy shopping malls in downtown SLC - City Creek Center - estimated by some to be one of the most costly projects on earth, on a per square foot basis. Unfortunately, accurate construction costs can't be found. They aren't posted anywhere.

They buy Florida. The most recent purchase was 380,000 acres of virgin pine forest, intended for logging and a hunting preserve. They are currently the largest non-governmental land holder in Florida. They own 2% of the state.

Sometimes, they plan to sell Florida. Their latest scheme is to develop a master planned city on a large cattle ranch (that they already own). The city is to house a half million people on 54,000 acres. The money to build a city from scratch has to come from somewhere.

They make promotional movies - Meet The Mormons. Basically an hour and a half of back patting and smug moral superiority. Estimated cost $2 million. That comes from somewhere too.

Everything listed above is in their normal course of business. And all since 2010.

What you don't see, is the people they feed, and the actual good they do. Because it's really hard to find.

After the Haitian earthquake, they wanted to help by building an exclusive temple, to give the Haitians hope. Not to give them food, or health care, or clothes, or even a place to sleep. A pretty (?) building, the locals can't enter, to hope for Mormon heaven.

However Christlike you think they are, or aren't, the truth is almost certainly worse than you imagine.

I once met an exmo who worked for the church as a florist. This person claimed that their LDS floral shop supplied fresh flower arrangements in all of the offices in the church HQ building as well as the other places around temple square. Every week everyone gets new flowers. Something like $20K/week in flowers. For the funerals it cost $40k/funeral in flowers. During Thanksgiving and Christmas it was $200k/per event. The church provides christmas decorations to all of the GAs and sets them all up with trees and wreaths. It amounts to millions of dollars a year IN JUST FLOWERS.

These are things that the public doesn't even get to see. This is money they spend on themselves. I know that a few million dollars/year is a drop in the bucket of the billions they rake in but it does give a window into the life of the GAs.

Now think about the catering. The wardrobes. The private charter jets. When GAs have to fly on a regular airline they don'f fly coach. Then there is the security detail, the chauffeurs, assistants (butlers) and housekeeping help. It all adds up. It adds up to a lot.

Here's what I figured out:

The Church's annual revenue from tithing is indeed estimated at $5 to $8 billion a year but personally, I think it's currently lower, at about $3.5 billion:

http://www.mormonism101.com/2015/01/a-quantitative-model-of-mormon-tithing.html

So what do they do with all this cash? There are a few countries (Canada, UK, New Zealand) where the Church is required by law to file an annual financial report. From these reports, it would seem that personnel costs and the maintenance costs of buildings and grounds are the church’s major expenses (up to 70% in some countries):

http://www.mormonism101.com/2015/01/the-corporate-structure-of-mormon-church.html

Just an example: a mission president gets some $100,000 a year in expenses and perks (all the while proclaiming that these guys are volunteers). That's $40-$50 million a year right there.

Another approach is to look at the Church's main expenses. BYU easily costs a billion, as does CES. The next big chunk, in my opinion, is audio-visual materials, easily the largest department in the Church's administrative organization. I'm guessing the sales programme (missionaries) is a big one as well, but missionaries cover some of that cost on their own dime.

When you add it all up, I think the Church spends as much in tithing as it rakes in - very typical behaviour for a large, authoriarian bureaucracy. When money gets tight because sales are down, janitors get fired, lessen material recycled, projects postponed, etc. It is my conviction that this is a hugely ineffective, wasteful way of running a business - but getting a few billion tax-free, no questions asked every year does that to an organization.

Then there's the Church's business income. Their vast holdings have been alluded to above. Being a church, they can move funds around to reduce the tax rate without going the Panama route. By putting Church leaders in executive and supervisory boards, the top leadership can earn a few bucks on the side. Jeff Holland, for instance, is a Director on AgReserve which owns close to one million acres of farmland in the US alone but is also active in England, Canada, Australia, Argentina and Brazil.

By keeping this business in a closely-knit circle of inbred relatives, there is plenty of gravy to go around for Mormon royalty without too much interference from the unwashed masses.

Now, what we are all waiting for, is Quinn's magnum opus on Church finances. Until then, I hope this helps a bit.

How much income do they get from owning Marriott? It's gotta be hella change, if they had enough on hand to buy Starwood.

The church does not own Marriott.

Of course they do. Everybody knows this. It's why the LGBT folks boycotted Marriott after Prop H8 happened in California.

But I do stand only slightly corrected. I read on another exmo site that TSCC owns "only" 97% of Marriott stock. That three percent makes zero difference as far as I'm concerned.

Marriott is a corporation owned by many thousand shareholders.

http://investor.shareholder.com/mar/company-overview.cfm
At February 6, 2015, there were 276,542,350 shares of Class A Common Stock outstanding held by 34,458 shareholders of record

The largest single shareholder is the JWM Family Enterprises, Inc at 24 million shares (about 8.6%). Presumably that corp represents the heirs to JW Marriott, the founder.

http://investors.morningstar.com/ownership/shareholders-overview.html?t=MAR

This can't be true. Thousands of politically active LGBTQ folks wouldn't have boycotted a company that's only 8.6% owned by a freekin family trust.

As_Georgia_Goes:

It is soooo confusing! My sister and I both support LGBTQ causes. (I am gay and she is rabidly supportive.)

Anyway, I went online and decided to not do business with Lowe's because of their weak LGBT stand; we shop at Home Depot. She went online and decided to shop Lowe's and boycott Home Depot for the same reason.

(sigh)


Thanks, you guys, for all the good (bad?) financial information. I am stunned.

Even better (worse?): I posted another thread here today about Marriott's CEO and the pro-equality letter he published. I wondered openly if he's gonna have any backlash from GA about that.

So later I went to Google to find out more about him. Turns out he's NeverMo. He's a free kin Lutheran with a lifetime of supported gay rights.

Mind = blown. Boycott = ended.

Sorry about the mobile typing issues.

Marriott as a company is very gay friendly.

They use gay couples in ads.

When I found out about this, my boycott ended.

If I find a BoM in the room though, into the terlit it goes.