Do temples have a financial benefit?

[_subgenius]

Bottom line, temple attendance requires 10% of one's income. Their reasoning must be that greater access to temples will encourage more LDS to hold temple recommends, and thus increase revenue to the Corporation of the President.

actually it just requires that one's admission of paying 10% be confirmed/witnessed by the proper authority. Your reasoning seems to ignore the practical application of your conspiracy theory.

Now consider the Suva Temple in Fiji. The Suva Temple cost 5 million dollars in construction (land cost unknown) and Fiji has 15,897 members on record since about 1950.
Most people claim that about 1/3 of members are "active" - these active are the likely candidates for faithful tithing and temple recommends. this means Fiji has about 5,299 active members ( i assume living) who might be full 10% tithers. Now, of these 5,300 members only about 20% can be expected to hold a recommend which means about 1,060 members bear the cost of the Temple, if the temple is built to generate revenue from them. ( this is a generous number because i have not discounted any quantity for child members).
Each temple member in Fiji would need to contribute $4,716.98 USD before the church would begin to realize any return on their investment...not including interest lost, maintenance and operational fees, etc..
this would be in addition to the costs, just on Fiji, of maintaining the meeting houses, bishops storehouse, mission program, family history centers, etc....
The GDP per capita in 2008 for Fiji was $3,900 compared to the USA GDP per capita of $47,000.
This means each member likely contributes about $390 a year and our Fiji faithful contribute about $413,400 a year....if we apply this full amount to paying for the temple it would take just over 12 years for the church to be reimbursed its original 5 million dollar investment.

From here we can obviously manipulate the assumptions, such as what percentage actually pay the "full 10%" and how many members are likely to be in what income range, etc...
the overall point that can not be avoided is that there are no hard numbers that support the notion that building a Temple will contribute any significant, if at all, ROI. The $5 million fr Suva may see returns as soon as 5 years after construction, but those returns are likely to be in the minimal range and likely not as large as many other investment vehicles that would produce an ROI quicker and without as much risk.

[_Buffalo]

...if we apply this full amount to paying for the temple it would take just over 12 years for the church to be reimbursed its original 5 million dollar investment.

So after 12 years the church will recoup the investment and the temple will become a profit center. Thanks!

[_subgenius]

subgenius you may know the answer to this.
Would the asset value of the Church have a material impact on the Church's ability to self-insure and what the financial benefits of self-insuring?

i am not sure if the asset value of a temple would have an impact. If the temple is "paid for" then it is truly an asset...but if the church actually "borrowed" from a bank because cash outlays were more favorable over the term of the loan, the the financed temple is a liability as long as the loan is due.

The only benefit to self-insuring that i am aware of is that it reduces exposure, a sort of "stop gap". However, commercial insurance usually only "kicks in" for amounts that exceed the self-insurance. It may be an advantage to helping lower premium costs for commercial policies.

[_Jhall118]

Fiji seems to be a narrow example. Even if the residents of Fiji don't exactly pay it off, the church gets to add a +1 to their temple list, and increase it's worldwide presence.

Members of the church feel better when they know that a lot of people agree with them. This is how religions work.

[_subgenius]

So after 12 years the church will recoup the investment and the temple will become a profit center. Thanks!

only if the full amount tithed is applied, then yes after about 12 years....the church would make way more money putting the $5 million in a 5 or 10 year CD.
You are neglecting the soft costs of maintenance, utilities, insurance, etc.
So, while it will likely one day operate above cost, from a business position it is not a good investment. Especially since by the time the building is in this "profitable" position it will likely be time to sink another few million into a renovation.
Now, can you turn your posts for this thread over to someone who can at least balance a checkbook?

[_subgenius]

Fiji seems to be a narrow example. Even if the residents of Fiji don't exactly pay it off, the church gets to add a +1 to their temple list, and increase it's worldwide presence.

agreed, but the OP, and many after that, is about the financial benefit. Public relations, solidarity, and the spiritual aspect are not a applicable.
Fiji was used because it was relatively simple and isolated. It also serves as a good example of why a temple is built with little prospect of financial gains.

Members of the church feel better when they know that a lot of people agree with them. This is how religions work.

People in general "feel better" when they know this....this is how humans work.

[Guest]

So after 12 years the church will recoup the investment and the temple will become a profit center. Thanks!

only if the full amount tithed is applied, then yes after about 12 years....the church would make way more money putting the $5 million in a 5 or 10 year CD.
You are neglecting the soft costs of maintenance, utilities, insurance, etc.
So, while it will likely one day operate above cost, from a business position it is not a good investment. Especially since by the time the building is in this "profitable" position it will likely be time to sink another few million into a renovation.
Now, can you turn your posts for this thread over to someone who can at least balance a checkbook?

Your analysis was pretty conservative, and you chose one of the poorest areas as an example, and still showed that the church will realize net profit on the investment in under 15 years. Considering the useful operating life of temples, I'd say it's a good investment, and perhaps less risky than CDs given the economic climate. Note that the church builds most of its temples in wealthier areas.

Note also that the board of directors of the Corporation of the President hedge against risk via a broad portfolio of investments, only one of which is temples.

[_Buffalo]

agreed, but the OP, and many after that, is about the financial benefit. Public relations, solidarity, and the spiritual aspect are not a applicable.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goodwill_%28accounting%29

[_UnicornMan]

subgenius you may know the answer to this.
Would the asset value of the Church have a material impact on the Church's ability to self-insure and what the financial benefits of self-insuring?

i am not sure if the asset value of a temple would have an impact. If the temple is "paid for" then it is truly an asset...but if the church actually "borrowed" from a bank because cash outlays were more favorable over the term of the loan, the the financed temple is a liability as long as the loan is due.

This isn't the right kind of analysis subgenius....I teach courses in management accounting, and also dabble in real estate.
To calculate the return on the investment, there are several approaches you can take.
What is common to all methods is that the denominator of the return on investment calculation is the amount of YOUR MONEY invested in the building, not the total amount invested (including the bank’s portion). Only YOUR MONEY invested counts.
The numerator can be a number of different calculations – a common one is the accounting rate of return, which take the net income of the property – subtracting utiliies, maintenance and depreciation on the building from the increase in revenues, arriving at a net operating income figure.

Divide the amount of YOUR MONEY invested into the net operating income figure, and you have the accounting rate of return. And guess what – the LESS of your own money you have invested in the building, the higher the annual accounting rate of return given a fixed amount of net operating income. This is because the less you invest of yoru own money, the smaller the denominator. Granted, the more money you borrow, this reduces the net operating income by the amount of interest you pay, but if the interest rates are low (and I suspect they are for the cash-rish LDS Church) the effect of having little of your own money into the temple can produce a huge rate of return.

And, because the Church often asks for temple building fund donations over and above tithing when they put in a temple, the amount of money invested from existing tithing coffers is probably not that great in some areas of the world. Also, the Church may well subsidize Fiji with other funds from wealthier areas of the world.

Also, if the temple pays back in 12 years, well, this is a decent payback period for the Church as they are bound to build temples given all the scriptures on it, and the theology. To have them pay back when they are in operation for decades upon decades eventually leads to great wealth.

Now, I see how it can seem offensive to think that temples are a paying proposition…but in my few skirmishes with the Church on non-welare, temporal matters, I believe that money is a BIG DEAL to the LDS Church. They wouldn’t be investing in these buildings with such enthusiasm if the economics didn’t work out. If the economics were bad, they’d make them smaller or with less expensive materials so they did pay. If they were truly money pits as some would have us believe, the Church would eventually run out of money. And we all suspect that is not the case.

[_moksha]

Each temple member in Fiji would need to contribute $4,716.98 USD before the church would begin to realize any return on their investment...not including interest lost, maintenance and operational fees, etc..
this would be in addition to the costs, just on Fiji, of maintaining the meeting houses, bishops storehouse, mission program, family history centers, etc....
The GDP per capita in 2008 for Fiji was $3,900 compared to the USA GDP per capita of $47,000.

Church leaders being able to visit Fiji in order to preside over spiritual matters in a vacation paradise has its own justification.