I was thinking about this today at work. What exactly is holding the church back from releasing a comprehensive complete version of the financials to the public? Members should know the percentages being spent in each area and a justification for why certain areas receive and others don't. What if there was a statement each year released that gave an accounting of how money is spent and why?

How would an admission be received by the public such as:
1) "We plan to cut back on BYU sports expenditures and spend more on Glen Beck food storage kits this coming year..."
2) "We regret the outcome of proposition 8, and this year will instead team up our resources with the Clinton Foundation in the quest to help AIDS patients..."
3) "City Creek went a little over budget and big box malls maybe going the way of the dinosaur, so future excess money will go towards digging wells in Africa..."

If the GA's sent out a thorough critical version of the financials and future goals, I think lots of people would really like that. I don't see what's stopping them?

The church loses secrecy. I don't think that church authorities want their decisions reviewed, questioned, and criticized. I remember a few years back when the Canadian LDS church was revealed to send an outsized sum of money to BYU (IIRC the only legitimate way for the church to move money out of Canada.) There was a fair amount of criticism for that for which, I believe, the church was unhappy.

About 10 years ago, Utah was considering a flat income tax with no deductions, whom do you suppose opposed it? That's right, the Morg. My guess is that church figured that borderline tithe-payers wouldn't pay without a tax deduction. These borderline folks would take one look at the financials and say, "such a wealthy church doesn't need my money."

http://archive.sltrib.com/story.php?ref=/sltrib/home2/52598654-183/tax-huntsman-utah-reform.html.csp

From that article, "The political reality was that legislators didn't want to give up deductions. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, in particular, spoke out against the elimination of charitable deductions."



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 12/05/2016 11:20PM by BYU Boner.

Gawd is not accountable to anyone. The inspired leaders are only held accountable to Gawd. Neither Gawd nor the inspired leaders are accountable to us the lowly members. The TSCC is not a decomracy so get over it.

Instead of saying "the church is not a democracy so get over it" that sounds a bit harsh! I want to add that making the financials public might insinuate that they are accountable to the members and that is a message they don't want to send as it may invite criticism. Something the inspired leaders have no taste for.

Good point, but ironically inspired leadership is (or should be) accountable to members. This would be the case in any other LLC or Corporation. There are the 'Active' member/managers (GA's in this case) and the 'Passive' members (rank and file) under IRS tax laws.

All businesses have their shareholders meetings yearly to go over future goals and past performance where decisions are made to where to place charitable giving for the upcoming year and how to manage operating expenses. I just wonder if in the long run financial transparency would actually be the most beneficial style for the more informed sophisticated 21st century Mormon than in times past. (Maybe babyboomers were just fine in times past with handing over a blank check with their eyes closed?)

I'm aware of some TBM's that have the nagging feeling that all is not quite right (financially) in ZION, and many card carrying, broom riding, Mormons actually don't pay "full" tithing. When people live in Utah all their lives and see a lot of secrets and gossip up close, doubts are going to spring up somewhere, eventually...

It would be blatantly obvious to the higher thinking members that their church is much more of a business than a church. They might wake up to the reality that they are being used and leave. Maybe just a trickle would leave but I think even a trickle would scare the top dogs.

It's hard enough for tscc to find adequate higher leadership types to fill administrative roles. This could cause even greater defection.

Very true and good observation Pooped. Wonder why that didn't occure to me.

The top 15 don't want the members to know how much their "modest" living allowance is.

The average member has no idea the length and breadth of the property and businesses owned by the Church and the list of church elite that profit from those ventures.

The average member thinks the money goes to three things, church buildings, Temples, charity. That's it.

Ask a member if they know that the church own 6000 acres of land near Oahu's north shore and you'll get a blank stare. Ask about the new apartment building the church bought in Texas and you'll get the same.

If the average member knew full up about the financials they would shite their pants, then hide the checkbook.

This is what the prophets fear the most.

If people could see that the average 'stipend' paid to General Authorities is far more than they will ever earn in their lifetimes, and that GAs live a lavish lifestyle on the church's tax free money and sweet business deals given to them, it would be game-over on getting the sheeple to pay tithing going forward. The church hides their finances for one and only one reason: what they're doing with the donation money both looks and is grosely immoral. They don't want anyone to know about it.

To lose? All credibility.

If it was advantageous for the church to release their financials, they would have done so years ago. I work in the finance world and I know this: Whenever you have a large pile of money with no transparency, no accountability, etc, it is only a matter of time before there's massive corruption and graft. The church stopped disclosing its finances since 1959. Do the math.

the members would see how deceitful the leaders are. They would see the scam. This would not be a good thing for the corp.People get pissy when people scam them out of money.

If the Church released its financials it would give the
impression that the members DESERVE that information. The
Church works overtime conditioning the members to be blindly
obedient. The members need no such information to exercise
blind obedience.

the information on the farmers they paid off whose goats GBH was having carnal relations with.

Everything

Free labor. If members realized the huge amounts of money involved they'd start to ask why the hell they have to "be volunteered" to clean the church every week when the church has that much money available.

They'll also find out how many tens of thousands (hundreds of thousands) of dollars goes to the church from each ward yearly, and how very little of that money is coming back ($500 for Relief Society, $300 for Young Womens, no money to heat the building in winter, etc).

I think TSCC has alot to hide financially and it is their Achilles heel.

I think the church runs a corporate racket. And I mean racket in the literal legal sense of the word.

I think there is a huge tax-laundering function in the church. I think they use religious tax shelters for more than only tithing. I think they shelter commercial money by transferring it to church accounts.

Then there's a nepotism economy in the church. Temple and other construction contracts go to companies with direct relationships to church leaders.

Then there's the embarrassment of how tithing money is really spent. Little of it goes to charity, we already know that. But overall it vastly goes to support not the church on a local level, but BYU and centralized church hierarchy. Hinckley said BYU is the church's #1 expense. And he admitted GA's get a "modest" stipend compared to corporate officers with similar magnitude of responsibility. He also admitted church leaders are selected for business and management acuity. Many members still don't know that GAs are paid, apostles in the several-100,000's, on down to mission presidents whose "expense account" allows all living and travel expenses, gifts, tuition for children, maids, groundskeepers, and many personal non-church expenses. At the end of the list of allowed expenses, it's no different if not even more generous than a salary. Who cares, except the mission president's leaked handbook instructs mission presidents to not represent in any way they are paid by the church. I bet GA's receive similar instruction, and that their pay is 100% tax-free.

Then there are is church's political lobbying and tampering that is illegal for a non-profit to do and they do it nefariously.

The recent speech by a church lawyer says a main attack on religious freedom will be against it's tax-exempt status.

He has reason to worry about that.

Society is on the cusp of wondering if even legitimate religions should be tax-free, never-mind corporate rackets using religion as a front.

I personally believe the church is sitting on their own self-made powder-keg of financial impropriety. I believe it could be big. And, I believe it's the only thing that could materially hurt the morg.

Their land and money portfolio is so large that they could lose tithing altogether and still run. I think they could tolerate losing a lot more members than are now leaving. One or two affluent tithe-paying households pays the utilities on a paid-for meetinghouse. If tithing drops by 50% or even 75% they could cushion it.

But they can't cushion financial transparency because it would incriminate them and expose them to legal sanctions of the kind that forced the church to give up polygamy.

Any veneer of humility it ever had.

RB

Its members ...

... and their tithing.

About a million tithe payers.

poopstone Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> What exactly is holding the church back from releasing a comprehensive complete version of [her] financials
[and] future goals..,
-They have none-

I think lots of people would really like that. I don't see what's stopping them?

-Honestly? (Dis)Honesty!, [secret combinations (on the 'safe')] which stops many a criminal enterprise from doing things above board.-

The "church" doesn't view itself as a CHURCH but wants the world to. It is two-faced. "It wants to have it's shat and eat it too".

Aha! I found the reason. In an article back in the 90's, it says.

"Officials of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints refuse to disclose information about real-estate holdings, even to members, saying such information would distract from the church's ecclesiastical mission."

So they just don't want to DISTRACT the members.
You see, there's a PERFECTLY GOOD REASON.
Yeah, I guess it would be a little distracting.

http://www.deseretnews.com/article/170647/LDS-CHURCH-REAL-ESTATE-HOLDINGS-INCLUDE-FARMS-RANCHES-BUILDINGS.html?pg=all

I was thinking that even if there was a church leader who WANTED to come clean and put the church back into a more church-like financial state, HOW could he do it? There can NEVER be any admission of wrong-doing or mismanagement as that would imply that the previous leaders were not divinely directed.