"Churchome, the Washington state megachurch led by Judah Smith and his wife Chelsea, has been slapped with a class action lawsuit for allegedly imposing a tithing policy on employees, in violation of state law, that requires them to give back no less than 10% of their gross earnings to the church or face disciplinary action, including termination."

https://www.christianpost.com/news/churchome-forced-employees-to-tithe-10-lawsuit.html

Whenever there is discussion of how Mormon church employees are required to be temple recommend holders (including the mandatory 10% tithe,) my reaction has always been, how is this not an illegal kickback?

"'Defendants have engaged in a systemic scheme of wage and hour abuse against their employees, including the requirement that all employees rebate ten percent of their gross earned wages back to Defendants in the form of tithes on a monthly basis or face actual or threatened pressure, discipline, or termination,' Kellogg's complaint says. Churchome did not immediately respond to questions about the lawsuit from The Christian Post Monday. Kellogg's attorneys, Toby J. Marshall and Jasmin Rezaie‐Tirabadi of the Terrell Marshall Law Group PLLC, contend in the complaint that the conduct of the Smiths and Kroll violate Washington's Wage Rebate Act and the state's Consumer Protection Act."

It will be interesting to see the result of this lawsuit. While only Washington state laws are being cited, if the lawsuit proves successful, siimilar Federal laws could be enacted if current laws are found to be inadequate.

I always assumed that a provision of employment by the church would be a 'voluntary' agreement by a new employee to have 10% of his/her salary diverted to the church to cover tithing...

After all, if it's not voluntary, how you gonna get the blessings?

It works likes this with this god fella.....if you pay voluntary tithing, the blessings are voluntary too, so you may get nothing from god.

If you pay mandatory tithing, then the blessings are mandatory too, so again, you may get nothing from god because he does whatever the F@$% he wants!

Please, please read the entire article! OMG What nutty crooks!

building and it was required that she pay tithing.

That’s wrong, too. It seems these nutty folks in Seattle were skimming 10% off the top and it wasn’t made clear that tithing was a requirement for employment. Then when they found out an employee wasn’t paying, they threatened to fire her, and they did. Then she had her bank make automated payments to this church? The whole story is really strange. And Russell Wilson!

Does TSCC wait for tithing settlement or does it deduct 10% from people’s pay (just curious - not saying it’s okay).

My bad. I don’t think they were skimming, but it is against WA law to make tithing a requirement of employment.

IIRC, you can have the 10% deducted from your paycheck if you work for LDS, Inc. Or, you can pay in the normal fashion. But either way, you are expected to fork over the 10%.

Guess which side of this ChurchCo will take…

Sorry, No Second Chances on this

What would Jesus charge?

Lololol

Remember, it's only a tiny step from God The Father to The Godfather.

:-)

What I think the church will argue is that the Washington law violates the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution which guarantees freedom of religion. This means that if the church loses in the state courts, they will move to the Federal court system. Whether or not the case makes it all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court will likely depend on how much financial backing this church will have for its position. If this case does go to the U.S. Supreme Court and the current nine Justices will be hearing it, my guess is that the church will win by either 5-4 or 6-3 (I'm not sure which way Roberts would vote, but I'm betting that the other conservative Justices will side with the church).

Of course, this is a long way off so we'll see what happens.

The difference might be in mandatory vs. voluntary tithing.

-Seems to me if this megachurch is demanding 10% for tithing and the courts go against them, the church will turn around and say because of a shortfall of income everyone's salary is reduced by 10%.

If you're an employee and don't like it, you're free to walk.

I'm not an accountant, but there must be some business advantage of giving an employee $1000/week and demanding $100 back. It has to be a bookkeeping thing.

If this is allowed, soon Boeing, MS, Starbucks & other large Washington Corps will claim religious status & demand same privileges…

Yes, you heard it from me first!