Analysis of latest LD$ Church financial data filed w/ Canada's tax agency.
Widget June 2013
The CRA info. reveals that the LDS Church has played a money shell-game with "tithes and offerings" from duped and sacrificing Canadian members. Latter-day Saints have been kept in the dark by Mormonism's senior priesthood leadership about how their donated funds have been used. Thankfully, regulations in Canada and some other nations have forced the "true" corporation partially pull back its financial curtain.
Note: This is an expansion of info. I posted earlier this year.
Yesterday, I went through several pages of online financial records filed by the LD$ Church with the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) in order to maintain its status as a registered charity. LD$ Inc. registered 484 "Qualified Donees", 483 of which are Canadian wards and branches. Notably, there is one non-Cdn. organization on the list: Brigham Young University.
The link is http://www.cra-arc.gc.ca/ebci/haip/srch/t3010form22gifts-eng.action?b=11...
I called the CRA to inquire about why a US-headquartered church with a university that has no campuses in Canada would be allowed to register its post-secondary education institution as a "Qualified donee." I was told that regulations allow it - period.
The sum of the listed "Total amount of gifts" for the 484 "Qualified Donees" is $115,126,701. How much tithing and other "offerings" from Canadian Latter-day Saints did the LD$ Church funnel to BYU? According to the filed data, $102,900,000 (89.38%).
LD$ 'Profits' or other priesthood leaders certainly did not inform Mormons in Canada that the lion's share of their donated monies would be used not to build chapels or temples or support the missionary program or for genealogy activities, but to pay the church's BYU bills. Why utilize the cash from unsuspecting Cdn. members that way? The likely answer is so that the LD$ Church would not have to use ~$103M from its American sources to pay its university operating expenses.
What would be advantage of that arrangement? Millions of dollars could be funneled from LD$ Inc.'s U.S. sources to its wealth management company, Ensign Peak Advisors (EPA). For what purpose? Profitably trading financial instruments.
Eleven months ago, Bloomberg Businessweek did an in-depth piece about the LD$ Church's global money-making empire. The "Holy Holdings" graphic on p. 2 of the online report shows EPA as one of the companies structured under the "Corporation of the Presiding Bishop of the Church of Jesus Christ of LDS" (the image is online at http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2012-07-10/how-the-mormons-make-mon...).
The related Businessweek online slideshow says: "Ensign Peak Advisors is an investment fund of the Mormon Church. According to profiles on LinkedIn, managers at Ensign Peak specialize in international equities, cash management, fixed income, quantitative investment, and emerging markets. One of Ensign Peak’s vice presidents in 2006 [Laurence Stay] told the Deseret News that 'billions of dollars change hands every day.'” (Ref. http://images.businessweek.com/slideshows/2012-07-11/the-mormon-global-b...)
Think about it, lurking Latter-day Saints: "billions of dollars" of financial instruments were traded "every day" in 2006 ALONE to make the ultra-rich Mormon Church even richer. Disconcertingly, in October of that year the United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organization reported that in excess of 852 million people worldwide did not have enough to eat (details are online at http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/1020-01.htm).
What was the LD$ Church doing with its immense wealth while people went hungry and many starved to death? Developing its multi-billion-dollar City Creek Center commercial real estate project in SLC. Of course, Mormon priesthood leaders continued to tell members that they needed to clean chapels, while church HQ reduced the meager monthly sum provided to missionaries to pay for their food and basic personal care expenses.
What kind of financial instruments has EPA traded to generate wealth for the Mormon Church? In the least, stocks, bonds and credit derivatives, according to info. from the following sources:
1. http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2012-07-10/how-the-mormons-make-mon...
2. http://www.imno.org/articles.asp?qid=123&sid=18
3. http://www.isda.org/bigbangprot/bbpdf/EnsignPeakAdvisorsInc.pdf
Bear in mind that credit derivatives were at the heart of the U.S. subprime credit boom-and-bust "bubble." It began in the latter 1990s, mushroomed from about 1998 to early 2007, and then imploded starting six years ago, wiping out trillions of dollars of global wealth and destroying an estimated 31 million jobs worldwide during the so-called "Great Recession."
Four years ago, KSL reported that Mark Willes, president and CEO of the LD$ Church's Deseret Management Corp., said: "We're announcing publicly, for the first time, that for the last several years we've had impairments of $600 million [at church-owned Beneficial Life]." The "big hit in the financial portfolio" was, according to Willes, "completely tied to the meltdown in the financial markets, which we face just like everybody else does." (Ref. http://www.ksl.com/?nid=148&sid=6836506)
So much for LD$ 'Profits' having the "gift of prophecy"!
Returning to the Businessweek article, page 2 says: "According to U.S. law, religions have no obligation to open their books to the public, and the LDS Church officially stopped reporting any finances in the early 1960s. In 1997 an investigation by Time [Magazine] used cross-religious comparisons and internal information to estimate the church’s total value at $30 billion. The magazine also produced an estimate that $5 billion worth of tithing flows into the church annually, and that it owned at least $6 billion in stocks and bonds. The Mormon Church at the time said the estimates were grossly exaggerated, but a recent investigation by Reuters in collaboration with [Univ. of Tampa] sociology professor [Ryan] Cragun estimates that the LDS Church is likely worth $40 billion today and collects up to $8 billion in tithing each year."
The CRA info. reveals that the LDS Church has played a money shell-game with "tithes and offerings" from duped and sacrificing Canadian members. No doubt, the same has happened in many other countries. For generations, Latter-day Saints have been kept in the dark by Mormonism's senior priesthood leadership about how their donated funds have been used. Thankfully, regulations in Canada and some other nations (but not the U.S.) have forced the "true" corporation of Je$u$ Chri$t to partially pull back its financial curtain.
axeldc
I give money to a Canadian university every year
I don't think it's strange that Canadians can give to American universities. I attended McGill and I give money to their library every year.
Many Canadians attend BYU, so why not give it money?
freckles
Re: Analysis of latest LD$ Church financial data filed w/ Canada's tax agency.
Why does all of the money generated from Canada go to BYU? Why doesn't Canada funnel it straight to SLC like everybody else?
raiku
Re: Analysis of latest LD$ Church financial data filed w/ Canada's tax agency.
"while church HQ reduced the meager monthly sum provided to missionaries to pay for their food and basic personal care expenses."
This is infuriating. These are members of my family who are PAYING THEIR OWN WAY to go on a mission, and the church takes their missionary money and doesn't even give them enough food to live on! In other words, they are getting NEGATIVE net income, while their parents are being told they are getting adequate amounts according to the countries they live in!
The Canadian transfer looks to be an effort to keep their public books clean. Makes you wonder what their non-public books look like. I'd love to see an accounting of the total benefits in dollars everyone at general authority level and above gets.
nailamindi
Re: Analysis of latest LD$ Church financial data filed w/ Canada's tax agency.
I was just reading some mormon blog posts criticizing BYU's honor code (dress code) and the creepy enforcement tactics. Some commenters pulled on to the effect -if you have a problem with it then don't go there. Well, if you're from Canada, pretty much all your tithing money goes there... complain away!
Anyhow, this is such an obvious runaround for tax exemption purposes. Basically money laundering. Disgusting.
guynoirprivateeye
Re: Analysis of latest LD$ Church financial data filed w/ Canada's tax agency.
One day...God will share 'Everything he has' with us, so it's NP!
SEcular Priest
So Tithing is a Gift
According to the Canadian Tax Code, tithing is considered a gift. According to the Church tithing is a commandment.No wonder they changed the tithing slip to say they will try to use the funds as you have checked off on the slip but the Church can do what ever it wants with the money and does not have to tell you.
Canadians, WAKE UP.
So if I go to a temple recommend interview, I should be able to get a recommend because according to the laws of the land, I have given the church a gift. Whether it's 1% or 10% is is the same in the eyes of the law. It's a gift.
Any lawyers out there want to comment on this. If I wanted to give a gift to a university, I would do so. Maybe I don't want to give a gift to the university, maybe I want to give the gift to the poor. With the LDS Church you have no say when you give. So how can it be a gift?
Very interesting insight into the LDS Church.
Brother Of Jerry
Canadian Exmos: see if a financial writer for a newspaper will cover this
The reason the Canadian subsidiary of LDS Inc sends all its money to BYU is very simple. Money collected by a church in Canada is tax exempt as long as it is spent in Canada. The rationale for the tax exemption is that churches provide social services that are of value to the citizens of Canada. If the money is just shipped out of country to a mother church in some foreign country, that is no longer true.
However, they made an exception for money used to support foreign schools. I assume what the legislators who wrote the tax code had in mind was third world schools, but that was not stated in the law. Either that, or lobbyists from organizations like LDS Inc lobbied to have this loophole included in the tax code.
Either way, LDS Inc is using this loophole to get around the spirit of the Canadian tax code - that tax-free donations to churches should be spent for the benefit of Canadians. The only way this is going to change is if Canadian media shines a spotlight on it and/or Canadian MPs tighten up the tax code to specify that tax-free donations to foreign schools must go to K-12 schools in less developed countries, not to 4 year universities in industrialized nations, or have a 10% cap on such donations, or something like that.
The present situation is purely a dodge to subvert Canadian tax regulations and get the money out of Canada tax-free.
ladell
Re: Analysis of latest LD$ Church financial data filed w/ Canada's tax agency.
I can't imagine that the church is growing in Canada, those would be interesting numbers to see. I suppose parts of Canada like Utah north in southern Alberta might show some growth, but elsewhere I doubt any Canadians have any interest in TSCC
weeder
thank you for putting this together
I wish this would be obviously pointed out in the media.
dk
Re: Analysis of latest LD$ Church financial data filed w/ Canada's tax agency.
I hope Canadians do complain about it and get the laws changed. We in the US are even more in the dark because the church doesn't have to report any financial information. As someone stated above, Canadians have no say in whether or not their tithing contributions are sent to BYU.
Exmosis
Attention - Widget, SP, Raiku & others
Have you seen this link to a new law that was just passed in Alberta?
What is this all about?
See http://www.assembly.ab.ca/ISYS/LADDAR_files/docs/bills/bill/legislature_...
vh65
Re: Analysis of latest LD$ Church financial data filed w/ Canada's tax agency.
My guess is that this allows them to then use "undisclosed" US money to do whatever they want - build temples, malls... Bit if I were a Canadian Mormon I would be mad!
not logged in
So the only charities they fund are themselves - Canadian wards and branches and BYU.
Where is all the charity work they claim? What homeless shelters, soup kitchens, places that actually HELP people do they support? None. Just themselves.
wowbagger
Re: I give money to a Canadian university every year
Yes, it is perfectly acceptable to give to a foreign school. I think the point is that most canucks do not know this is going on, and it is for tax purposes.
the LDS church would argue this is an "avoided cost" and the canadian money frees up other US and international tithing money to do the lard's work
yeah. sure.
for the record, yes there are canadians at YBU (262)
http://yfacts.byu.edu/Article?id=270
but many more americans at McGill (2267)
http://www.mcgill.ca/es/registration-statistics#INTERNATIONAL
oh yeah, almost forgot. Oil Thigh! Go Queen's!
Spud
Re: Analysis of latest LD$ Church financial data filed w/ Canada's tax agency.
I did my mormon time in Canada. 0 people baptised in the 23 months I was there but 7 delivered resignation letters in a matter of 6 weeks. Yoshihiko Kikuchi came to the mission and instituted a program called 'Feed My Sheep' where we would go (usually w/ branch pres.) to find 'Lost Sheep' (read: less actives) to share with them the good word of the lord and they would tell us everything they hated about the church and we would encourage them to resign to 'clean up the books'. It was truly an inspired program (sidenote-I asked to leave this area after 6 weeks because of the relationship developing between me and the BP's daughter and when I got to my new area god decided we should stop feeding the sheep.)
left4good
Re: Analysis of latest LD$ Church financial data filed w/ Canada's tax agency.
freckles Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Why does all of the money generated from Canada go
> to BYU? Why doesn't Canada funnel it straight to
> SLC like everybody else?
As I understand the Canadian law, charitable donations must remain in Canada with a very few exceptions. One of those exceptions is that it can be expatriated to an out-of-Canada educational institution.
My guess is:
1. LDS lobbying had something to do with keeping that provision alive over the years if anyone saw through it.
2. The money that goes to BYU is re-allocated elsewhere in the Mormon Empire soon after arrival. See "laundering."
squeebee
Re: Analysis of latest LD$ Church financial data filed w/ Canada's tax agency.
It doesn't have to be re-allocated. Over $100m into BYU from Canada is over $100m that the US church doesn't have to spend on BYU, allowing the $100m that the US church would have spent on BYU to be spent elsewhere.
summer
Re: I give money to a Canadian university every year
The money that the Canadian Mormons send to BYU is way out of proportion to the number of Canadian students that go to school there.
Basically it's the only way that the church can get the money out of Canada and into Utah as they do with most of their other donations.
left4good
Re: Analysis of latest LD$ Church financial data filed w/ Canada's tax agency.
Yeah, good point.
I wonder what BYU's budget is.
ASteve
Re: Analysis of latest LD$ Church financial data filed w/ Canada's tax agency.
Correct, money is fungible.
Likewise, saying the money to build the billion dollar mall came from investments and not tithing is nonsensical. Money is fungible.
Exmo Mom
Re: Analysis of latest LD$ Church financial data filed
Um really? Just because some Canadian Mormons go to BYU, they can fund BYU and that is called Canadian charity?
I would think that they would only be allowed to send their dollars to a Canadian religious institution, not to BYU or Salt Lake
"Recovery from Mormonism - www.exmormon.org"