In breaking news from the Washington Post, a former investment manager for the Mormon church alleges in a whistleblower complaint to the Internal Revenue Service that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has amassed about $100 billion in accounts intended for charitable purposes.
According to the complaint, these funds were intended for charitable purposes, but instead were allegedly used for profit purposes in business deals.
“Having seen tens of billions in contributions and scores more in investment returns come in, and having seen nothing except two unlawful distributions to for-profit concerns go out, he was dejected beyond words, and so was I,” Lars Nielsen wrote, who’s brother sent the complaint.
The LDS church is known for having many large and spacious buildings which they call temples, that are extravagantly furnished. These temples are more religious in nature, but the LDS church has allegedly used their charitable funds for business purposes, such as building a large shopping mall.
“I wish to give the entire church the assurance that tithing funds have not and will not be used to acquire this property. Nor will they be used in developing it for commercial purposes.”
– LDS Church President Gordon B. Hinkley said in 2003 when plans for the shopping mall were introduced.
Despite the LDS church President (also called their “prophet”) saying that tithing funds wouldn’t be used to build the mall, the Washington Post article from the whistle blower reports that “Nielsen said the funds were taken specifically from the Ensign account that receives surplus tithing.” Nielsen filed a formal complaint with the IRS, including a signed Form 211, the formal piece of IRS paperwork for reporting tax avoidance, a notarized cover letter to officials, plus the 74-page narrative document co-written with his brother in which he detailed his allegations at length.
Unlike many large religious organizations, the LDS church does not reveal their finances to the public.
Unfortunately, hiding the truth and LDS church leaders caught lying are not new things for the Mormon church. Lies even go back to the very foundation of their church. Their founder and “prophet”, Joseph Smith, was caught lying to the public about not having more than one wife, when church documents show that he was in polygamous marriages with multiple women at the time. He has also been exposed as fraudulently translating multiple things, including the Kinderhook plates (where were shown to be phony), and even LDS scripture including the Book of Abraham (which experts say was really Egyptian funeral texts and having nothing to do with the text that he “translated”).
All these facts can be verified via the inline links above.