I’m Totally Fine with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints Stashing Away $100 Billion

If you received a million dollars today, what would you do?

I have heard many conversations from many people about what they would do.  The answers range from purchasing houses and Lamborghini with cash, getting full-body tattoos, to blowing twenty thousand in a night at a club.  Even the more mature answers I find quite stupid.

This is what I would do if I received a million dollars today: absolutely nothing.  I wouldn’t buy a single thing.  I would invest the entirety of the money into an investment account and then live off of the dividends.  Since the average S&P 500 dividends amount to 2.5% distributed every quarter, this amounts to $25,000 every 3 months.  This equates to just over $8000/month or $100,000/year.  I would also receive automatic “raises” as the million dollars compounds over time, thus increasing my dividend payout.  With this amount, I would be able to comfortably provide for myself and my family.  If for some reason I desired any additional income, I could found a business or acquire a low-stress part-time job.

So what does this have to do with the recent news about the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and the $100 billion that they supposedly have stashed away?

Because investing $1 million and living off of the dividends is exponentially more intelligent than spending it outright and then declaring bankruptcy in three-to-five years like one-third of lottery winners.  This is exactly what the restored Church of Christ is doing: investing the principle and “living off” the dividends.

I have known several individuals who worked for the Church Financial Office and while they never disclosed the amount, all of them have mentioned to me at one time or another that the Church of Jesus Christ does not spend tithing funds—it invests them and then utilizes dividend payouts to cover all expenses and charitable work.  I did not see a problem with this.  In fact, I have always thought it was genius!

In addition, this is not a unique practice by any stretch.  The majority of universities, churches, and hospitals in the United States practice this technique, commonly known as endowment.  In 1638 John Harvard donated £780, the modern equivalent of $206,700,1 to Harvard College.  This became the initial investment into the institution’s endowment fund, which is valued at $49.3 billion as of 30 June 2019.  Since that time, hundreds of universities have established endowment funds, as well as hundreds of churches.  Endowments represent money or other financial assets that are donated to universities or churches and are meant to be invested to grow the principal and provide additional income for future investing and expenditures.  Endowments are non-taxable under U.S. tax law.

The editors of Washington Post (who originally reported the story) undoubtedly are not ignorant of the mechanics of endowments; the Post has published dozens of articles2 about them in the past few years.

So it is in bad faith that the Post would report that the Church has breached federal tax rules by reserving money in an endowment when they are fully aware of what an endowment is, what its purposes are, and that such investment funds are tax-exempt.

If endowment funds are an established practice, why should the Church be penalized merely because they are better at it than other churches?  “The IRS does not attempt to question the beliefs or purposes of churches unless extreme (law violations, for example). In the case of the Mormon Church, if they honestly believe they should be saving for the 'second coming of Christ,' why should the IRS question that? Just because there is $100 billion involved?”*

Throughout the “Anti-Mormon” internet—whether it be whole websites dedicated to attacking the Church of Jesus Christ or stray comments on Facebook, Twitter and Reddit—there is a common buzz-phrase that is thrown around: “the Church is a corporation”.  In some magic of circular logic it is generally used as a self-contained end-all-be-all fact.

Although it would take volumes to address every nitpicky criticism of such detractors, I hope to repel the general gist of their argument: that the Church is set up for the sole purpose of enriching the leadership.

Every local Church position is unpaid and on a volunteer basis only.  Those who are called as General Authorities in the upper echelons of the Church of Jesus Christ receive a stipend which is less than “a Methodist pastor of a middle-class congregation in the Midwest”, surprisingly little for the leaders of one of the largest churches in the United States.

This stipend is less than the income my former mission presidents Elder L. Todd Budge and Elder Takashi Wada made as presidents of the Tokyo Star Bank and of Universal Studios Japan, respectively; less than the salary Elder Dallin H. Oaks and Elder Jeffrey R. Holland received as successive university presidents of BYU; less than the pay Elder Henry B. Eyring and Elder David A. Bednar received as presidents of Ricks College; and substantially less than the earnings President Russel M. Nelson made as a world-renowned heart surgeon.  In other words, the majority of the leadership in the Church takes a drastic pay cut when they are called to be General Authorities.

In addition, while the leadership of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints travels extensively, most of their time is spent meeting with members, speaking engagements, and other managerial duties.  They work a tireless schedule until they die.  They do not live in excessively large and fancy homes but in average-sized apartments; they drive nice but not extremely expensive cars; and while Elder Holland may be seen at the occasional Utah Jazz basketball game the leaders do not engage in extravagant and expensive events for their own personal pleasure.  They do not benefit from any of the possessions, affairs or the lifestyle usually associated with “enriching oneself”.  In short, if the leadership of the Church is truly attempting to enrich themselves, they are doing a very poor job of it.

The Church makes millions of dollars of charitable donations yearly.  It has provided more than two billion dollars in aid.  “To help relieve hunger, the Church operates 124 bishops’ storehouses throughout the world. Through them, approximately 400,000 food orders are given each year to individuals in need. In locations where no storehouse exists, bishops and branch presidents draw from fast-offering funds of the Church to provide food and supplies for their needy members.” The Church has built wells and provided literacy classes in developing countries, “In the year 2018 alone, the Church provided emergency supplies to refugees in 56 countries”, last year, the Church provided vision care for more than 300,000 people in 35 countries, newborn care for thousands of mothers and infants in 39 countries, and wheelchairs for more than 50,000 people living in dozens of countries…and carried out more than 100 disaster-relief projects around the world, helping victims of hurricanes, fires, floods, earthquakes, and other calamities.”*

Anti-Mormons somehow seem to miss all of this loving service.  The Salt Lake Tribune, ever-critical of the Church of Jesus Christ, published an op-ed in 2018 titled “Why aren’t churches [in Salt Lake City] helping the homeless?”, seemingly forgetting that they had published an article just the year before acknowledging that the Church had donated $10 million to combat homelessness in Salt Lake City.

I invite anyone who doubts the authenticity of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to watch just a few episodes of The WorldReport.  I am positive the restored Church of Jesus Christ does more good than the combined works of their critics.

I have been the recipient of this aid myself.  In a time of need, the Church—without any conditionality or promise of repayment—paid 5 months for my family.  The Church also provided food from the Bishop’s Storehouse twice a week for this period of time.  And two days before Christmas, when my wife and I had no presents for our four beautiful daughters the Relief Society President showed up with an overwhelming amount of gifts, paid for out of Church funds.

So at the end of the day, I don’t care if the Church is “not transparent”.  I honestly don’t care if they have a hundred trillion dollars tucked away, because the Church does what it says it will do in following the example of Jesus Christ in caring for the poor and needy.  I have received it myself.  By this I am not saying my faith is for sale, or that my loyalties can be bought.  I am saying that I know that the Church is rendering life-changing financial aid to at least tens of thousands of people.3

In the course of my life I will give to the Church in tithes approximately $186,000.⁴  I am grateful the Church of Jesus Christ is financially responsible and will invest this money into an endowment investment fund, where it will theoretically accumulate interest for the remainder of time.

Part of that interest earned on my donation will provide free scriptures to new converts, provide disaster relief for millions, provide education to underprivileged individuals in other nations, and eventually, build a temple in my wife’s home country of Guyana.

It is truly a blessing and a miracle that through my minuscule donation, generations of individuals will be blessed.  The amount of money that would barely purchase a three-bedroom house has the potential to bless others eternally.

The Bible tells us “by their fruits ye shall know them” (KJV, Matthew 7:15-20).  By that definition, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is the truest church on earth.

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1. Inflation adjustments from 1638 to 2018 provided by Bank of England online Inflation Calculator.  British Pounds to USD data as of 21 Dec 2019 provided by Morningstar, Inc.

2.  To cite a few:

       Lewis McCrary. "Taxing college endowments will hurt red-state kids more than coastal elites", 28 Nov 2017.

       Daniel Douglas-Gabriel.  "College endowments rebound after dismal return a year earlier", 25 Jan 2018.

       Daniel Douglas-Gabriel. "Feds release long-awaited rules on college endowment tax", 1 Jan 2019.

       Jay Matthews. "So Harvard has a $36 billion endowment. What does that really buy?" 19 Apr 2019.

       Nir Kaissar.  "Harvard Endowment Needs to Lower Fees, Not Pay", 4 Jun 2019.

       Susan Svrluga. "Tufts removes Sackler name from campus, will create endowment to combat addiction", 5 Dec 2019.

3. This is under the safe assumption that at least one person in each of the Churches 30,000 congregations [https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/church/news/2018-statistical-report-released-during-april-2019-general-conference?lang=eng] is currently receiving Fast Offering funds.

4. Assuming I made the U.S. nominal median income of $31,000/year from the time I was 20 years old, and reached the average U.S. male life expectancy of 78 years, while donating 10% of my income, I will have contributed $186,000 upon my death.

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