Connor Abeyta

English 2010
Professor Dominguez
Persuasion Final Draft

The LDS Financial Truth Revealed

From the age of ten to fifteen I attended services for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-

Day Saints, commonly known as the Mormon church. I partially did this because a lot of my

friends were members of the church. But it was also because I wanted to see what the church was

all about. I remember the wooden pews with green upholstery, the melodious sounds of the

organ in sacrament meetings, and I remember how hungry I always was on fast Sundays. But one

of the things that I can most vividly remember was the service that was done. Even when I was

starting to doubt policies near the end of my time with the church, I still respected the charitable

work that they did.

Recently, however it has been discovered that the LDS church has both understated the

amount of money it possesses and overstated how much of that money has gone to its

philanthropic efforts. These kinds of situations must not be ignored. It is time for the members of

the LDS church to look critically at their organization and see why the church’s financial

situation is so problematic.

In 2019 a man named David Nielsen uncovered the Church’s financial situation for the

world to see (Whistleblower, The Salt Lake Tribune). Nielsen worked at Peak Ensign

Advisors for a decade. Peak Ensign Advisors, or PEA, is a financial/investment firm directly

associated with the LDS church and handles their finances (Whistleblower, The Salt Lake

Tribune). This firm is meant to fund the charitable activities of the church, oversee the spending
of tithing, and make sure that other expenses are paid for by the church. All of this sounds fine in

theory.

Afterall, we are talking about a worldwide religious organization with one hundred and

sixty-eight temples and many more on the way (New Houses of the Lord, The Church Of

Jesus Christ Of Latter-Day Saints), and over 16 million members who pay tithing, or give ten

percent of their income to the church (Mormon Church, The Sydney Morning Herald). With

all of this to manage, it’s not shocking that the church would create an auxiliary finance firm.

What is shocking is the fact that David Nielsen revealed to the world that the church has a

stockpile fund of around one hundred billion dollars (LDS Church, Jenkins). A majority of this

cash pile has accumulated from the collection of tithing over the decades, and with tithing still

being an active practice in the church, it seems this reserve of money will only grow bigger in

time, especially with the money being tax exempt for religious purposes.

The LDS church obviously has a staggering amount of money that it controls, but what

may be equally shocking is how the church uses this money, or alternatively, how they don’t use

it. According to The Sydney Morning Herald, the LDS church has billions of dollars invested in

the stock market with stock in major companies such as Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, and Googles

parent company, Alphabet (Mormon Church, The Sydney Morning Herald). And they have

even used their amassed wealth of tithing money for commercial ventures such as building City

Creek Center in Salt Lake City while assuring members that their tithing would not be used for

such things. (Whistleblower, The Salt Lake Tribune). Though these figures are disturbing,

these activities reveal only a fraction of how these one hundred billion dollars are used. One

might assume that a large amount of the church’s wealth is used for charitable efforts and

outreach programs. But statistics show that this is not the case. Between 2008 and 2020, the LDS
church stated to have given or spent one point thirty-five billion dollars (Mormon Church, The

Sydney Morning Herald). Though this amounts to only about one percent of the organization's

massive wealth, one billion dollars is obviously a huge amount of money that could help many

people, right? Well, it would be if that amount of money was actually given in aid. In actuality,

the church spent one hundred and seventy-seven million dollars in that same amount of time

(Mormon Church, The Sydney Morning Herald). I was shocked when I read about this.

The circumstances that the church finds itself in leave a myriad of questions for both

members and non-members alike. For members, it brings up the question of “should I still be

giving tithing?” After all, a lot of members money has gone directly into the stock market and

other private business ventures. For non-members it brings up questions of legality, like “should

the church remain tax exempt if it is doing the same exact things as a business?” That is a fair

question considering the IRS states: “Organizations organized and operated exclusively for

religious, charitable, scientific, testing for public safety, literary, educational, or other specified

purposes and that meet certain other requirements are tax exempt under Internal Revenue Code

Section 501(c)(3).” (Exempt Organization Types, IRS). But clearly the cash of the LDS church

has not been used exclusively for religious or charitable purposes. According to Ryan McKnight,

another whistleblower, and former Mormon, “The Mormon church will have you believe that it’s

a religion that dabbles in business, but the evidence clearly shows that they are a business

dabbling in religion,” (Mormon Church, The Sydney Morning Herald). All of these would be

valid to questions to ask, but the question that comes to my mind first is why doesn’t the church

do more to help people now? Don’t get me wrong, they organize service activities for youth,

fund service missions outside of America, and have even given seventy-five million dollars in

Utah welfare assistance in the last decade. (Utah used LDS Church to ‘help’ the poor,
Freethought Today). But with the amount of resources that the LDS church has, they could do a

near infinite number of things to assist the people of Utah and people all around the world. So,

this begs the question, is it legal or even moral for an organization to have that much money and

power without any sort of real oversight or disclosure of what they intend to do with it?

Some within the church may disagree with my position and I understand why they may.

Afterall, the LDS church is a private organization and members give tithing of their own free

will. So why should it matter what the church decides to do with that money. Well, my answer to

that would be this: because it’s not all about the LDS church. Utah is a beautiful state that is

home to many people of different origins and beliefs. And the LDS church’s choices and actions

should not worry the people of Utah. And personally, I am very worried about a single

organization that has access to one hundred billion dollars without disclosing how they intend to

use it.

To me it is extremely troubling that the LDS church has been so dishonest about their

finances. I do believe that there needs to be some kind of oversight for cases such as this one. I

don’t know exactly what that would look like, and I definitely do not claim to have all the

answers. But I hope the people of the LDS church will take a long look at their church leadership

and come to see that something needs to be done about this secrecy and dishonesty.
 Bibliography

 Schneiders, Ben , et al. "Mormon Church Invests Billions of Dollars While Grossly

Overstating Its Charitable Giving." The Sydney Morning Herald, 29 Oct. 2022,

www.smh.com.au/national/mormon-church-invests-billions-of-dollars-while-grossly-

overstating-its-charitable-giving-20220927-p5blbc.html.

 Jenkins, Jack. "LDS Church Unlikely to Face Action from IRS for Use of Donations."

Christian Century, 2020.

 "Report: Utah Used LDS Church to 'help' the Poor." Freethought Today, 2022.

 "Exempt Organization Types." IRS, www.irs.gov/charities-non-profits/exempt-

organization-types#:~:text=Organizations%20organized%20and%20operated

%20exclusively,501(c)(3).

 Semerad, Tony. "Read Whistleblower David Nielsen’S New Sworn Statement on the

LDS Church’S Handling of ‘Tithing’." The Salt Lake Tribune, 17 Aug. 2021,

www.sltrib.com/religion/2021/08/17/read-whistleblower-david/.

 "The Church of Jesus Christ Will Build 18 New Houses of the Lord." The Church Of

Jesus Christ Of Latter-Day Saints, 2 Oct. 2022,

newsroom.churchofjesuschrist.org/article/october-2022-general-conference-new-

temples#:~:text=The%20Church%20of%20Jesus%20Christ%20currently%20has

%20168%20operating%20temples,house%2C%E2%80%9D%20the%20prophet%20said.