Back in 2019, David Nielsen, an investment portfolio manager for the Mormon Church somehow went public and filed a whistle-blower complaint with the IRA, claiming that under the cover of “charity” the organization violated the church tax exempt status by directing funds built from member donations to bail out business linked to the church.
More recently, the news show 60 minutes interviewed Nielsen and I learned that each year, the Mormons collects around $7 billion in contributions from their 17 million members who are supposed to shell out 10% of their income. That money is used to pay the church's expenses, build temples and pay for other things.
The remaining money, about $1 billion a year, is put into a reserve fund at Ensign Peak and has grown since to $130 billion. That’s a lot of money considering that unlike other nonprofits, religious organizations don’t have to fully disclose all financial information to the IRS. Even, if they could there would be plenty of ways to hide illicit fund distribution to religious leaders, but with that provision it’s up to one imagination’s to envision what goes on.
As I have said before, any religion is irrational, but Mormonism doctrine goes a step farther and belong to the realm of absurdity. So while the paying faithfuls are brainwashed since childhood, it’s easy to imagine that the church leadership might be consumed by getting rewarded for their work…
Mormonism could in fact be a huge money making machine for some of its cadre and that’s why it proselytes as much as it does. It is said that sunshine is the best disinfectant, but in the absence of transparency all bets are off...
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