New Project Shows Church Finance Corruption

[Analytics]

With these two statements, Scott jumps to the conclusion that the church must own "$220 billion, absolute minimum" in real estate, not held in Ensign Peak. Not to question Scott's research, but it feels a bit hand wavy at the end of the day, because his huge headline numbers of greater than $220Bn in real estate holdings is ultimately based on two uncited, and candidly, questionable, if not made up, sources.

There's no doubt the church owns a lot of land. But how much is that land worth, really? I find Scott's presentation unconvincing in terms of justifying the claimed asset values.....

I'll add that according to the Letter to an IRS Director (Exhibit A), the church makes a capital allocation decision target of holding 18.2% of its rainy-day fund assets in commercial real estate. this amounts to something on the order of $20 billion--that is the approximate value of Agricultural Reserves Inc. combined with Property Reserves Inc.

Even though this real estate is not owned by EPA, it is shown on EPA's reports.

[Dr Exiled]

What the fund's money would look like if they stacked it up (when the fund reaches $1,000,000,000,000):



Or

[Dr Moore]

I'll add that according to the Letter to an IRS Director (Exhibit A), the church makes a capital allocation decision target of holding 18.2% of its rainy-day fund assets in commercial real estate. this amounts to something on the order of $20 billion--that is the approximate value of Agricultural Reserves Inc. combined with Property Reserves Inc.

Even though this real estate is not owned by EPA, it is shown on EPA's reports.

Yes, I saw that too.

[dastardly stem]

In the end, I think it makes more sense to be conservative and careful in these analyses. Because over-estimation of church assets and holdings ends up grounding bad feelings in poor data.

This is absolutely a great code to go by for all of us. It is easy to get caught up in the high end, or exaggerated estimates, but doing so serves no positive purpose. If we estimate, we should shoot low.

I had a similar sneaking suspicion when I viewed the slides. There has to be good grounding for the data or we may need to proceed with far more caution.

[BeNotDeceived]

Needless to say, I will never give the LDS Church another penny of my money.

This. Anyone who is still tithing at 10% of gross income who is aware of all of the financial disclosures over the past several years needs to have their head examined and I currently have some beachfront property in Nebraska to sell to them.

[BeNotDeceived]

According to this well researched website, the church has between USD300 and USD400 in commercial and agricultural real estate.
http://www.bidstrup.com/ldsfinances.htm

I've been curiously reading this linked page. Thanks for sharing it, Simon.

The page is dense and rather difficult to parse. On one hand, so much information must have taken a lot of effort to find.

But it's hard to understand how Scott makes the leap to claiming such large numbers in real estate holdings.

Many land holdings are listed, but without a clear summary of what's owned and what's leased. And none of the land holdings are given a dollar value. So despite all of the listed properties, it all seems to boil down to two inputs which are not attributed:

First, this:

Some years ago, the Salt Lake Tribune sent some reporters around to poke through the public records in the County Recorder's offices scattered around the state of Utah, carefully recording land and real property owned by entities known to be church-owned corporations in each county. When the results were tallied up, the total assessed taxable value was $110 billion - about 11% of the assessed taxable property value of the entire state of Utah.

Then, this:

The church's apostles have often said that the church owns more real estate outside of Utah than inside.

With these two statements, Scott jumps to the conclusion that the church must own "$220 billion, absolute minimum" in real estate, not held in Ensign Peak. Not to question Scott's research, but it feels a bit hand wavy at the end of the day, because his huge headline numbers of greater than $220Bn in real estate holdings is ultimately based on two uncited, and candidly, questionable, if not made up, sources.

There's no doubt the church owns a lot of land. But how much is that land worth, really? I find Scott's presentation unconvincing in terms of justifying the claimed asset values.

Another point, missed by most assessments, is that temples and chapels may have cost a certain amount of money, but are in fact worth only slightly less than the market value of the land they sit on, because that's what a buyer will pay for the land, discounting the cost of demolition. The buildings have no value to the market, only to the church.

In the end, I think it makes more sense to be conservative and careful in these analyses. Because over-estimation of church assets and holdings ends up grounding bad feelings in poor data.

Dr. Moore, the average U.S. corporation typically invests 10% of its net worth in the markets and we know the 'church' currently has almost $40 billion in the stock market and so judging just by that stat and figure alone, I think we can deduce the LDS 'church' is worth at least $400 billion. Jesus must be proud.

[Dr Moore]

Dr. Moore, the average U.S. corporation typically invests 10% of its net worth in the markets and we know the 'church' currently has almost $40 billion in the stock market and so judging just by that stat and figure alone, I think we can deduce the LDS 'church' is worth at least $400 billion. Jesus must be proud.

Respectfully, no. What data are you looking at to arrive at this "10% of net worth in the markets" claim? We can actually test that assumption with public accounting statements, and while it would take a little digging, I would begin by stating that I am very, very confident that this assumption is faulty on multiple levels. Beginning with the fact that most US companies also carry debt. Moreover, the LDS church is not a typical U.S. corporation.

Let me just suggest once again that inflating estimates of LDS church assets on the basis of faulty assumptions or uninformed notions only weakens the valid critical arguments against the massive wealth stockpiling that has taken place at the expense of doing good things in the world.

[drumdude]

Tithing isn’t about helping the church. Tithing is about getting blessings.

Mormons are in full-on prosperity gospel mode now.

[Canadiandude2]

It’s a strange position they’re in.

They’ve never been more wealthy than they are now, but they’re also set to possibly lose a larger share of subsequent generations of members than perhaps ever before as well.

They could respond with increasing church budgets for activities and crap, but ‘buying the members loyalty with expensive membership rewards’ doesn’t actually strengthen any of their truth claims.

Would it work? Ski trips, elaborate camp-outs, more elaborate festivities?

Maybe they’ll also opt to buy other institutions’ silence instead by donating more to nonprofits that would normally otherwise be hostile towards them?

[SaturdaysVoyeur]

They’ve never been more wealthy than they are now, but they’re also set to possibly lose a larger share of subsequent generations of members than perhaps ever before as well.

They could respond with increasing church budgets for activities and crap, but ‘buying the members loyalty with expensive membership rewards’ doesn’t actually strengthen any of their truth claims.

Would it work? Ski trips, elaborate camp-outs, more elaborate festivities?

I wouldn't call any of that "buying loyalty." I think the church has made a huge mistake in gutting community-building activities at the ward and stake levels. Dances, overnights, camping trips, roller skating. To the extent that those things "keep people in the church," they do so in a healthy, pro-social way.

I feel bad for kids in the church today, who don't seem to be getting much, if any, fun church activities anymore. Neither do the adults, for that matter. Even the pageants have been cancelled. It's like they realized all this stuff wasn't the missionary tool it was always superficially billed as ("Bring a non-member friend!"), so they refuse to keep spending even a tiny fraction of their loot on activities that members enjoy and that increase social investment in the church.

Maybe they’ll also opt to buy other institutions’ silence instead by donating more to nonprofits that would normally otherwise be hostile towards them?

Who's truly hostile to Mormons anymore? Most people don't give a crap about Mormons. The press was almost too gentle on Mitt Romney's religion during his presidential campaign. Even our one natural enemy---the Evangelicals---have realized Mormons are useful political allies.

It's kind of a circular question, because having that kind of money has probably bought Mormons some respectability and opened some powerful doors, leaving them with no one who really needs buying off. The major newspapers haven't remained silent when there's a good story brewing in Zion. There just usually isn't one that anybody but other Mormons would care about.