Source: How did Mormons get all that MONEY???? Channel: Alyssa Grenfell Published: June 27, 2025 | Archived: May 24, 2026

Video: How did Mormons get all that MONEY????
Channel: Alyssa Grenfell
Published: June 27, 2025
Duration: 56:57
Views: 263,559
Category: People & Blogs
Video ID: UuHh-LDNJzs

Description

Is the Mormon Church really the richest church on the planet? In this video, I break down how the LDS Church built a $293 billion empire—through tithing, tax loopholes, unpaid labor, and secretive investing via Ensign Peak. We’ll look at how their centralized financial system gives them a massive advantage over decentralized churches like the Catholic Church. I also explain the SEC investigation, whistleblower revelations, and how the church legally siphons money out of countries like Canada. Full breakdown + extra stories are on Patreon!

~~~~~~~~ A few resources I mention in the video: *More stories of tithing indoctrination on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/posts/wow-goes-so-hard-132273890?utm_medium=clipboard_copy&utm_source=copyLink&utm_cam paign=postshare_creator&utm_content=join_link *Wealthiest church rankings: https://www.vanguardngr.com/2024/08/top-5-richest-churches-in-the-world-2024/ *Mormon leader talks about tithing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_khpLxkMbK0 *Other speech about tithing: https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/general-conference/1994/04/tithing?lang=eng *Salt Lake Tribune reporting around the $293 billion figure: https://www.sltrib.com/religion/2025/02/21/lds-church-fund-is-down-almost/ *Catholic church operating deficit: https://www.foxbusiness.com/lifestyle/pope-francis-dead-88-what-financial-situation-vatican *Articles of Faith: https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/comeuntochrist/article/articles-of-faith *Temple recommend questions: https://newsroom.churchofjesuschrist.org/article/october-2019-general-conference-temple-recommend *Church siphoned money from Canada: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/mormon-church-jesus-christ-latter-day-saints-funds-charity-1.6630190 *Tithing slip TOC: https://www.reddit.com/r/exmormon/comments/4mt0ho/what_a_tithing_slip_actually_says_at_the_bottom/ *Fire insurance scripture: https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/scriptures/dc-testament/dc/64?lang=eng *Ensign Peak Advisors Wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ensign_Peak_Advisors *Mormon church latest holdings: https://fintel.io/i/ensign-peak-advisors-inc *SEC Press Release: https://www.sec.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2023-35 *Widow’s Mite Report: https://thewidowsmite.org/2024update/ *My video about Mormon Preppers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XzokEuGwfuo *My video about MLMs and the Mormon church: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ueGcVlo7XV0&t=2820s *Mormon prosperity doctrine: https://religionnews.com/2023/11/17/mormonism-and-the-soft-prosperity-gospel/ *Philanthropies page: https://philanthropies.churchofjesuschrist.org/gift-planning/what-to-give/ *Tithing lawsuit thrown out: https://www.sltrib.com/religion/2025/04/17/lds-church-wins-again-federal/ *Mormon church’s law firm: https://www.kirtonmcconkie.com/ *SEC violation coverage by Washington Post: https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/mormon-church-has-misled-members-on-100-billion-tax-exempt-investment-fund-whistleblower-alleges/2019/12/16/e3619bd2-2004-11ea-86f3-3b5019d451db_story.html

~~~~~~~~~~ Where to find me: *Patreon (ad free & bonus content): https://patreon.com/alyssadgrenfell?utm_medium=unknown&utm_source=join_link&utm_campaign=creatorshare_creator&utm_content=copyLink *Read my book, How to Leave the Mormon Church: https://amzn.to/4na4rpo *TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@alyssadgrenfell?lang=en *Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/alyssadgrenfell/?hl=en *Email me: alyssadgrenfell@gmail.com

~~~~~~~~~~ Support my channel: *Patreon (ad free & bonus content): https://patreon.com/alyssadgrenfell?utm_medium=unknown&utm_source=join_link&utm_campaign=creatorshare_creator&utm_content=copyLink

Transcript — YouTube panel (human-authored)

0:00 The Mormon Church is one of the wealthiest churches on the planet. And some say it’s literally the richest church on the planet. So, this is my explanation as an ex- Mormon who for 20 plus years dutifully paid 10% of my income on every single penny I ever made. And I mean this literally like when I was a kid, if I found 10 cents on the ground, I would pay my one penny. I put it in the envelope and give that to my bishop. Tithing is drilled into you as a Mormon kid from a very young age. There’s hymns about paying tithing.

0:31 There’s lots of children’s activities so that you can teach your little tiny children that paying tithing is really important. And along with that, here’s an off-qued sentiment from a Mormon leader. He said, “Some people say, I can’t afford to pay tithing cuz 10% of your paycheck is kind of a lot of money. Those who place their faith in the Lord’s promises say, I can’t afford not to pay tithing.” That quote was from Dalin. jokes. But here’s a different speech by a different leader where he says essentially the same thing. No bishop, no missionary should ever hesitate or lack the faith to teach the law of tithing to the poor. The sentiment of they can’t afford to needs to be replaced with they can’t afford not to. One of the first things a bishop must do to help the needy is ask them to pay their tithing. Like the widow, if a destitute family is faced with the decision of paying their tithing or eating, they should pay their tithing.

1:30 [Laughter] Not great. Oh my goodness. And there are many many missionaries across the the globe and they will go into impoverished families, impoverished communities and teach those people that they should be giving 10% of their the very small amount of money that they have to what is essentially a multi-billion dollar corporation. The top comment on that video says, “Tithing has brought me only pain. I have tithed all my tithes and even asked multiple bishops over the years for help with food and none has ever been given to me. So for all those who act like everything is okay in each case are clearly wrong. He goes on to say, “Tell me how a full tithe payer and worthy member get no help.” Another top comment says, “He must need a new car.” And so obviously the level of indoctrination and guilt that goes into getting members to pay tithing is pretty extreme. If you’re hungry and you could

2:27 either get food or pay tithing, you should pay tithing. This is absolutely immoral advice to give to individuals who are going through a hard time. And when I was in college, if I got a gift card, I would pay tithing on the gift card. When I got a scholarship that, you know, the scholarship went directly to the university BYU, I paid my own money to pay tithing on the scholarship. And so the level to which I was really observing this law of tithing was pretty extreme. But even with all of that guilt and these crazy levels of messaging and indoctrination from a very young age, there are so many other things the church has done to amass this fortune outside of just getting members to fork over 10% of their paycheck. The church has done a lot in order to amass this level of wealth. And we don’t even really know exactly how much it is. In the United States, churches aren’t required to say how much money they have. Estimates put the church’s wealth

3:24 at between 200 and 300 billion with a B dollars. To read from the Salt Lake Tribune, it says that’s according to the Widows Might Report, a website devoted to documenting the church’s finances. It estimates the church’s overall wealth at about $293 billion at the close of 2024. That’s up 28 billion from the previous year. And so if we take that figure, the $293 billion, that means the Mormon church is worth just a little bit less than CocaCola as far as their total valuation. And it means that they’re worth more than General Electric, Chevron, Disney, Wells Fargo, T-Mobile, McDonald’s, and American Express. And so if there’s one thing I know about Mormon God, it’s that he really, really loves money. What’s more is that the church was fined $5 million by the SEC, by the federal government for purposefully concealing just how much money that they had. And a lot of this money is held and managed through the church’s investment

4:26 arm, which is called Nsign Peak. And I feel like the fact that I have to say that the church I used to belong to literally has an investment arm, that’s just a huge red flag. On this website, you can see where they’ve disclosed what it is they’re investing in right now. Some of their largest holdings are Nvidia, Microsoft, Apple. So, I’ll link that. All of this will be linked below if you want to go check out what the Mormon church is investing in right now.

4:52 Obviously, the $5 million is a slap on the wrist of a fine compared to having almost $300 billion. They’re like, they’re like, “That’s what I like rub my nose in in the morning.” But I think for a lot of people, this really exposed that the church was lying. If you read through the SEC’s report about this, they say, “We allege that the LDS church’s investment manager with the church’s knowledge went to great lengths to avoid disclosing the church’s investment.” And so, if the government is saying that they they use the term great lengths, they went to great lengths to avoid disclosing this wealth, that’s that’s called a lie. Uh the church lied about the amount of money that they have. And when I was a member, uh, as anyone watching this will will know who was once a member, you have to answer a bunch of questions in order to enter a temple to go to a Mormon temple.

5:44 One of those questions is, are you honest in your dealings with your fellow man? And so to me, the fact that the church can say, “Sorry, you’re not going to get into the highest level of Mormon heaven because you’re not eligible for a temple recommend.” Meanwhile, on the back end, they are scamming the government and like doing doing the most to try to make sure the government doesn’t know how much money they have. I I find that a little hypocritical. I also growing up had to memorize something called the articles of faith.

6:12 These are meant to be just a very basic set of beliefs that that Mormons hold and most primary kids memorize them. Uh so one of the articles of faith, this is article faith 12. It says, “We believe in being subject to kings, presidents, rulers, and magistrates in obeying, honoring, and sustaining the law.” And so, you would think from this article of faith along with the temple recommend questions that they would, you know, like be willing to uh be honest with be honest with your fellow man, obey, honor, sustain the law, which says, you know, don’t obscure your investments, your billions of investments from the federal government. But I guess they’re just sidest stepping this one. I will say too that even though obviously, like I said, that the $5 million was not that big of a deal to their bottom line. I think it made a huge deal to a lot of members. There were many members who after this came out who said, “I don’t think I really need to pay tithing anymore.” Because can you imagine paying

7:09 10% of your paycheck to an organization that you know has $300 billion? And maybe if you knew that they were doing something really really good with that money, you would feel like, “Hey, you know, take my money. Do do the good things with my money. You’re a church. You’re a charity. Here’s here’s my 10%. Uh, you know, I trust you.” Unfortunately though, less than 1% of that figure goes toward actual charities every year. What I also thought was funny is that a week ago I I announced I was going to do this video and about how Wikipedia as of a week ago listed the Mormon church as the wealthiest church on the planet. And after I posted that video, someone updated Wikipedia to say that actually the Vatican has more money than the Mormon church. And it lists their wealth as incalculable. And so I’ll get a little bit more into which church has more money and why there’s like this war of who gets to say they’re the richest church. So I’ll jump into that in a bit. But just to give a little bit more of an overview as to what this

8:14 video will be about. I’m going to share how the Mormon church got so much money to begin with. I’ll share some of the crazy stories I heard growing up about tithing. I realized I have so many stories that were like faith promoting stories that were actually kind of messed up stories about people sacrificing everything in order to pay tithing to a multi-billion dollar corporation. So I I made a separate video on Patreon that’s already posted if you want to check that out after this video. So I’m going to tell some of those crazy stories that I heard growing up that were meant to encourage me to be willing to pay tithing on every cent I ever had in my hand. I’ll also go more into what the church invests in specifically. Uh, The Widows Might Report is a great resource for figuring out how the church is investing this money. We’ll talk about the multi-million dollar mall the church built in Salt Lake City. I’m also going to share more about the details behind the SEC investigation and its impact on church culture. I also found a lot of

9:10 information about how the church exploits tax loopholes both in other countries and in the US in order to ensure that they’re paying the least amount of taxes possible so they can keep as much money as they can. I’ll say that this video could easily be several videos because there’s so much to get into when it comes to the church’s finances. So consider this a highlevel overview and I’ll link everything below if you want to go down the rabbit hole even further. So that’s what’s coming in today’s video. Don’t forget to like this video, subscribe to my channel, drop a comment for the algorithm. Let’s jump into the specifics around how the Mormon church and the Catholic Church’s wealth is the same and how it’s different. I also think explaining a little bit more about the differences between how the Mormon church operates and the Catholic Church is really eyeopening because it also helps explain how the church has

10:00 amassed so much wealth on paper. And I think how you quantify the wealth really matters when you’re trying to figure out just how much money that these churches have. And the idea that a church, either of these churches, has billions of dollars is obviously so crazy that a church can hold so much wealth. This isn’t going to be necessarily a value judgment on either church yet. We’re getting there with the Mormon church. Uh this is just an explanation and kind of a compare and contrast. I do think that saying that the wealth is incalculable is kind of a copout. If you go to the pages linked on the Wikipedia page, our first is Vatican owns over 5,000 properties worldwide. It reveals in first disclosures on in real estate holdings. Church is struggling with a budget deficit plus years of alleged mismanagement tied to its investment strategy. And then there’s also this page which uh explains that the Catholic Church has an operating deficit. And so the reason it’s funny to say the wealth is incalculable is that obviously

10:57 everything probably does ultimately have a price, but churches don’t really disclose often h how much money they really have, which is another reason why it’s hard to tell just how much money the Mormon church has. The way a church is organized matters a lot. So the the Catholic Church specifically in a lot of churches are decentralized. So that means that there’s different dascese, there’s different countries and within each country, within each dascese there’s different people and those people have a fair amount of power. So if you are a Catholic in Canada and you give that money to a Catholic priest um in Canada, the money will probably stay in Canada and it will more or less stay in the ecosystem in which it was donated. However, the the Mormon church is highly centralized and as you can see from this article, they’re basically reporting on how over a billion dollars was transferred out of Canada to Salt Lake City by members of the Mormon church. So while the Catholic Church is

11:59 pretty decentralized and the money is held in all these different pockets all across the globe, anyone who pays tithing in a church, almost all of that tithing is going to go through country lines out of where wherever it might have been donated and it’s going to be held centrally in in the United States in Salt Lake City. And so the way the money is held matters because it dictates how liquid that money really is. So the Catholic Church is kind of like a wealthy a huge wealthy family with lots of aunts and uncles and cousins, but it’s not like Aunt Mabel has Uncle John’s login to his bank account and can just transfer the money over without anyone saying anything. And so this means even if the money is there technically, it’s not easily accessible to all the leadership of the Catholic Church. Whereas in the Mormon church, it’s like just one person is very very rich and that person gets to dictate exactly what’s happening with the money.

12:56 The Catholic Church has a pope uh the Mormon church has a prophet, but the pope has a lot more checks and balances on it uh on his power than the the prophet. Really, the only person the prophet answers to is God. Uh which means that he has a lot more say over what happens with with that money. And underneath the prophet of the Mormon church, you have 12 apostles. Uh, and those 12 apostles and he has two counselors. Those people basically have total control over this massive amount of money. And there’s not a lot of discord uh, at least publicly around these individuals. They always form a very united front. And so basically, think of a generational wealthy family with lots of aunts and uncles that the family’s very rich, but there’s not like one single person versus a more impoverished family where just one member of the family has a ton of money and everyone has to go to them and and you know, ask them for money. Maybe this analogy is getting too long. Those 12

13:57 apostles and the prophet, they all are in Salt Lake City. Uh, it’s so crazy because when you’re in Salt Lake, there’s the the pretty temple that everyone probably recognizes. I put it in my thumbnails from time to time that so that when you’re in Temple Square, you see the temple and then if you just turn slightly to the right, there’s this massive office building that is way bigger than the temple. And I think it really reveals the true priorities of the church in my opinion. and it has two globes on the side and a really long skyscraper at the top. And it definitely represents the patriarchy if you get my drift. Uh, and so that’s where all of the the wealth is held. That’s where the the twel apostles go to work or have meetings. I guess sometimes they go to the temple. And another difference as to why some might say the Mormon church has more money is the way in which the wealth is held. So, a lot of the the Catholic Church’s wealth is held in

14:55 beautiful buildings, in amazing art, uh sculptures, things that are hundreds of years old, whereas the Mormon church holds their money, most of their money in cold, hard cash. Uh, as you can see, as I showed you earlier from this investment fund, they’re holding a bunch of money in Apple and Google, which means that it’s a lot easier to place a valuation on the wealth. So, I mean, no one really knows how much the Vatican if you know who would even buy it necessarily if they were to sell it and they they don’t want to sell it. So, even if there’s a deficit, uh they they’re not really willing to sell off these priceless artifacts, they’d obviously like to maybe raise that money or source that money in different ways.

15:38 And even though the Mormon church has a lot of money in different investments like land, uh it’s a lot easier to place the value on farmland because there’s a lot of comparable pieces of land around versus these priceless artifacts that really can’t be reproduced. There’s nothing like it. The way the wealth is held also makes a big difference because the upkeep of these ancient buildings and these sculptures and the paintings the the the upkeep that is required in order to you know get the plumbing right in a Gothic building that’s just incredibly expensive compared to maintaining applestock which doesn’t really require plumbing obviously by comparison. And so this is, you know, this is like a average Catholic church uh that you might see in the United States. Very ornate, usually fairly old, require, you know, very beautiful, but requires a lot of upkeep. And this is a picture of a Mormon church. So typically a lot of them have been built, you know, maybe 80s, 90s, a lot of them even in

16:44 the last 10 years. And so the the level of upkeep required of this very boring, very plain building is nothing compared to the average Catholic cathedral. And so that’s another, you know, way that we can quantify how much what the operating costs are going to be is that really at every level the Mormon church is sucking all of the wealth and all of the richness that could be had by this war chest of a fund they have. and they’re saying, you know, that the the building will be as bare as possible and they’re basically just saying everything that we’re going to do is going to be kind of the bare minimum. And so I think to just the way in which the wealth is held makes a big difference. So the the Mormon church is both more liquid, so they can quickly sell a property, they can sell stock and have cash in hand.

17:38 the the the church just has more liquidity than the Catholic Church, which has a lot of their wealth held in these really priceless artifacts. That leads us into operating costs. The Mormon church has very few operating costs. Uh most of the people who are in the clergy do it for free. So, a bishop of a congregation is not paid. A lot of people are surprised to hear that. Uh, and honestly, we used to kind of brag about it when we remember is like our people are so disciplined and they have so much faith that they do all of this for free. But when you find out the church has $300 billion, suddenly it’s not the flex that you thought it was.

18:18 It’s actually just unpaid labor. And so most of the people within the local congregation aren’t compensated for what they do from day to day for the church. So they’re not paid to be bishops or relief society presidents. You’re not paid to collect fast offerings. You’re not paid to really any local calling is not compensated. Some of the higherups are compensated or they have living stipens of some kind, but most of the dayto-day of the church at a local level, the church is not paying any of those people to do what they’re asking them to do. As I’ve shared in the past in other videos, even Mormon missionaries who are sent to foreign countries for two years or a year and a half, they also are not paid. So, you get up very early in the morning. You knock doors all day. You’re making calls. You’re trying to get people to join the church. You’re trying to get people to be baptized. And you do that non-stop uh for two years. And you’re not paid for any of that. Most positions like that you would expect to be paid.

19:19 Actually, missionaries pay to do that. So, when I was a missionary, I paid $300 or $400 a month in order for the honor to do sales for the church essentially. And so, in a lot of ways, the church is getting people to give 10% of their paycheck and then give all of their labor for free. This free labor is even down to the cleaning of the building. So, for a while, the church actually hired cleaning staff to come in and clean the buildings. But in early 2000s, they were like, “We’re not even doing that anymore.” So, you can find here’s some screenshots of people, you know, getting together to say, “All right, it’s your turn to clean the building.

19:58 You’re, you know, you’re going to be on this Saturday or blah blah blah.“ And as a kid, I literally had weekends where we would go to the church and as like a 12-year-old, I’m scrubbing the toilets at the church for a multi-billion dollar organization, which is just so crazy. And I think that after the SEC thing broke and people were like the church can pay for its own cleaners. And even as a missionary and as a member, we were told fairly consistently, don’t offer, I mean, as a missionary specifically, we were told, do not ever offer any sort of help to investigators. If someone wants the church to help them, they need to join the church. They need to be paying tithing. As members, it was very much messaged that you shouldn’t bleed the church of its resources. And so there were times when you know if you are asked to have some sort of like a potluck, that’s a kind of a Mormon word.

20:51 It’s not like pot like the other pot. It’s a potluck where you get together and have it’s also called like a lingeronger. Everybody brings food and you have this kind of afterurch dinner party more or less. But the church doesn’t give any food for that. Uh all the members bring the food and the members bring the bread for the sacrament. And if you are a teacher of young children for like a primary, you are buying your crayons, your paper, all of the resources that run the church are additionally purchased by the members.

21:26 And so you’re not only paying 10% of your income, you’re not just doing this free labor. If any of that requires some special thing, you’re going to buy that, too. And so really at every level the church is making sure that they are contributing that money as the least as possible and the members are stepping up and being being you know you’re told basically this is how you show your faith. You you you give all of yourself and we get to keep the rest. And so if we’re comparing operating costs, you know, free labor, free missionaries, missionaries who are paying, uh, you know, members who are bringing their own cleaning supplies and crayons, and then you compare that to the Catholic Church, it pays many more of the clergy, uh, provides many more resources to its people, it also donates a lot more to charity, the more than the Mormon church by a long shot. And so really at every level, the Catholic Church is just doing more that that costs more money. That’s how we get articles about operating deficits. And then on the Mormon side,

22:31 we get articles about hidden billions uh that they’re concealing from the government. However you want to slice the bread. The Mormon church is definitely one of the wealthiest churches on the planet. So, let’s get into how they acrewed all that wealth to begin with. The 10% tithing is obviously the basis of how they got their kind of seed fund for this wealth. And when I was a kid, I would always put fill out my tithing on my tithing slips. You can see an example here. And the tithing slip literally has a terms and conditions thing at the bottom which I will read to you now. It says, “Though reasonable efforts will be made globally to use donations as designated, all donations become the church’s property and will be used at the church’s sole discretion to further the church’s overall mission. mission is not disclosed here as to what exactly that may be. Long story short of their terms and conditions is that they will be doing whatever they want with that money. And here’s a here’s a clip. Um

23:34 this is from a popular Mormon YouTube channel where they’re addressing uh what the church is going to do with this money. The church’s financial situation. There’s still a lot you could do with the money, but like it’s not going to solve the world’s problems. My decision to pay tithing is not conditioned upon how the church uses tithing. It has 23,000 likes. 23,000 people are brainwashed. I just feel like going to work, making your paycheck and giving 10% of that, you know, when you know, you’re just probably just kind of a normal person. Most members are more or less just normal people giving that to a church that you know is just hoarding billions of dollars.

24:16 the the cognitive dissonance that goes into just being like my responsibility is to pay the tithing as God commanded and they can do whatever they want with that money and I’m just worrying about my responsibility, my personal responsibility. It just I think it’s kind it’s really kind of sad honestly. And even the other man who’s like well they could do a lot with the money but they’re not going to save all the world’s problems. Maybe they could start, you know, I’m sure there’s some problems they could solve with some of that money. I’ve also seen people say, well, if they spent all the money solving all the world’s problems, then uh then they wouldn’t have any money left and then they couldn’t do any good. Okay, don’t send, you know, all the money to all, you know, people who are impoverished or people living with no food or water. Um maybe just send like more than 1% though. you know, there there has to be something in

25:13 between here that um and obviously, you know, it’s not up to me to say how the church is going to spend its money, but I’m also no longer donating to this church. This is this is the sentiment of people who are actively donating 10% of their income to the church, saying, “Well, you know, they’re not going to solve all the world’s problems, so I guess they might as well hoard the money.” Uh, and then the other person saying, “Well, I just want to follow the commandments because that’s what the Lord asked me to do.” And those are kind of some of the more faithful takeaways from the SEC violation is that people are trying to do gymnastics, mental gymnastics to say, I know I was supposed to pay tithing. I know like I have a testimony of tithing, but on paper, uh, this is really not looking great. And I know I showed you the clip where the man says, you know, if you have to make the choice between food and paying tithing, you should pay tithing. I showed

26:06 obviously too some of the the activities I did as a child where I was being heavily indoctrinated to to view paying tithing as a huge moral responsibility. Uh another joke that I thought of joke was that people would call tithing fire insurance. And the reason it got that nickname is that in the doctrine in covenants which is a book of scripture written by mostly by Joseph Smith. This is doctrine of covenants section 64. Uh, so basically Joseph Smith was writing scripture and saying it was from God.

26:38 But I mean it was obviously just what Joseph Smith wanted to say. He said, “Behold, now it is called today until the coming of the Son of Man. Verily, it is a day of sacrifice and a day for the tithing of my people. For he that is tithed shall not be burned at his coming.” And so because of that verse, which uh so if you if you pay tithing, you’ll be saved at the second coming. If you don’t pay tithing, you’ll be burned at the second coming. You’ll be flamed alive, apparently. And so that’s why people would call it fire insurance, because if you don’t want to be burned at the second coming, you better give the Mormon church 10% of your money. I also was remembering how my first time learning about percentages. My first ma my first ever math lesson about percentages was literally to do 10% like learn how to how to do the math on what’s 10% of a dollar $15 $25 you know as I’m getting my you know birthday

27:35 money as a kid I’d pay tithing on my birthday money pay tithing on Christmas money and I would get taught basically how to figure out what’s 10% and I’d fill out my tithing slip and I’d go and I’d hand it to the bishop and so just like everything I’ve been sharing obviously tithing is very much reinforced through a lot of different ways of saying that this this is really important. And if you don’t pay tithing, you also can’t get a temple recommend.

28:01 And if you can’t get a temple recommend, you can’t go to the highest level of Mormon heaven. So basically, Mormon heaven has a 10% entry fee. And that’s also just manipulative. the re the idea that God would say, “Hey, you were a great person, but because you didn’t give me some of your money, sorry, you have to go to hell, uh, or get burned at the second coming.” Uh, it just it’s not tracking for me. I’ve also seen people say that they don’t have to pay tithing in order to be Mormon. Um, this is the same as people who are like, “Well, I can drink coffee.” And it’s like, they’re literally saying that physically it’s possible to drink coffee. like, “Well, I can because I have a mouth and a tongue, you know, but I won’t.” Uh, it’s because their salvation depends on it. So, it it kind of bothers me when people are like, “Well, you don’t have to pay tithing to be Mormon.” Well, I guess technically, you know, you

28:51 physically can drink coffee and you can be baptized and not pay tithing, but are you going to the highest level of Mormon heaven if you if you don’t do all of these things? No. So semantics aside, basically to be fully active in the church, you have to pay tithing. I also remember the first time I got a real job asking if I should pay tithing on the gross salary or earnings or whatever or the net. Uh because gross versus net is basically do you pay tithing on 10% before taxes or after taxes? And as you can see, I’m a very like when I was Mormon, I was very legalistic about these things. The church doesn’t have an official stance on this, but um they’re always like, “Well, why don’t you pray about it?” And you know, if you’re trying to be the best Little Mormon you can be, there’s really only one answer, which is to be as righteous as possible, which usually means being as extreme as possible. Because either they’d say you should pray about it, or they’d say, “Do you want net blessings or gross

29:52 blessings? Do you want bigger blessings or smaller blessings?“ because they all, you know, it also says in the scriptures that the the heavens will be opened unto you if you pay tithing and you get all these unimaginable blessings as a result of paying tithing. And so I would always pay my 10% on my pre-tax amount of money. Uh which is just insane. And whenever I was dating my husband, I remember asking him, “Do you pay tithing on your gross salary or your net salary?” and he was like, “I paid it on my net salary after taxes.” And at that point, we were uh engaged. And I was like, “Well, I think we should pay it on the gross.” And he was like, “Okay, we’ll pay it on the gross.” So, anyways, 10% of your income sounds fairly basic, but then once you get into things like scholarships and gift cards and uh you know, birthday money, it’s just it really touches, you know, anytime money passes through my hand, I’m forking out my 10%. I also think the cruel thing about this billions of dollars situation with the

30:55 church is just how chronically underfunded wards or congregations are like local congregations. And I think that’s another reason people were so upset when it came out just how much money the church has because for years, you know, people, like I said, bringing their own crayons, you’re bringing you’re getting this the bread for the sacrament. You’re forking over 10% of your income. You’re paying fast offerings. You’re buying garments.

31:19 you’re you’re spending so much money on this church. And on top of that, when you give your 10% to the church, a lot of that goes to the church headquarters, like I said. So, I have a memory of this time that we had planned to go on a church trip. We were going to go caravan and it was going to cost, you know, a certain amount per member of the youth. And we had this really fun trip planned and the the bishop had really been amping it up and we were really excited.

31:46 I think we were basically going to one of Joseph Smith’s the the church history sites. So, it was still a church thing. It totally wasn’t like white water rafting or something, but I was still really excited. And I remember a couple days before we were supposed to go, the all the youth got together after a youth activity and the bishop basically said that the church hadn’t approved the the money that was supposed to go to this activity. Everybody was really sad. We had given I think my parents had already bought some of the stuff we needed for it and I just remember him saying this is a test of our faith and this is the Lord’s money and it’s not our money and we can stay here and we can read the Book of Mormon. So we we didn’t end up going on the trip basically because it wasn’t approved. The the money that that was meant to be spent wasn’t approved.

32:34 And so when people find out that they’ve been forking over 10% of their income and instead of having their kids go on fun trips fun to church history sites, it’s just going into Apple stock. People are insanely upset by that as they should be. And that’s just, you know, me as a little middle class kid example. That’s not missionaries going to people in the Philippines who have dirt floors and no running water and saying you should pay 10% of your income to this American multi-billion dollar corporation and if you don’t you’ll be burned at the second coming. Um which is even more horrendous. In addition to the 10% fast offerings which is an additional donation uh all the other ways I’ve I’ve explained that the church gets people to give them money. They also have other arms or other businesses within the church. Uh one is Desireette Book. Um you can buy journals, outfits, temple dresses, clothing, uh books, all

33:33 sorts of, you know, statueets. There’s so many different things you can buy there at Desireette Book. So that’s another way that they’re getting members to give the money. They also have Desireette News, which always has ads running on it. So it seems like they’re probably making money that way. uh they have a lot of people who write for them and so you can subscribe to get their news. There’s a subscription program for that. They also have life insurance and any of their like if you’re if you’re a BYU professor for example, you can purchase insurance through them like health insurance. And so they have a lot of their own systems that they can have members use rather than using other private uh suppliers of things like insurance. They have radio stations. Uh Bonavville International is their radio station and they have a few other things through Bonavville inter international and so and then I haven’t even talked about City Creek which is the mall that they built basically saying it’s like a

34:30 revitalization of Salt Lake and it’s like a massive mall. There’s a creek running through the mall. It’s really beautiful, don’t get me wrong, but I don’t know that when you pay tithing to a church you expect them to build a mall out of your tithing. I also talked about in my preper video how they have an entire canning and food storage uh business that they run. So you can buy flour or sugar or you know all these other different types of canned foods through through that. So they really have their hands in a lot of different pots when it comes to having businesses that members will rely on. So, it’d be so fascinating to just do a paycheck breakdown of how much money a member has. And then if you are accounting for all these ways that they’re going to be spending money, you know, you might send your kid to BYU, that’s another way you’re spending money. Um, you know, send them on a mission, it’s another way you’re spending money. So, I’d love to know like what’s the true percentage of someone’s lifetime paycheck that’s actually going toward the church?

35:28 Because 10% is the bottom. That’s the floor. And then all of these other things are just like nickel and dimming people into giving more and more money to the church. Also, if you watch my video about MLMs, you know that the Mormon church really focuses on prosperity doctrine, uh, saying that the more money you have, the more blessed you are. And so, when you promote and say, “Hey, you should go out there, get as much money as you can. Every bishop I ever had was wealthy. Every stake president, which is above the bishop, was even wealthier.” And so this means that in many ways you’re you’re showing to members that money matters. That if you want to have a high calling in the church, you have to make a lot of money.

36:05 And that’s not every single bishop, but it certainly was for me. And a lot of people have made the same observation. And so I think when you encourage a prosperity doctrine, what you’re also doing is saying that the 10% that you get of their paycheck is going to be even bigger. And so if you’re encouraging members to be wealthy and saying wealth is a sign you’ve been blessed by God, then you get some of that wealth. And so imagine, you know, there’s lots of businesses started by members of the church. One example is Marriott. If you ever stay in Marriott or a hotel owned by the Marriott company, you’ll see a Book of Mormon in your your dresser drawer right next to the Gideon Bible. That’s because Marriott is owned by members of the church and started by members of the church. And so this means that imagine how much money has gone in gone to the church as a result of the Marriotts starting that hotel chain. That’s that

37:00 right there is probably already millions of dollars. If they’re truly giving, which I believe they are, if they’re putting copies of the Book of Mormon in their hotels, 10% of their earnings, you know, going to the church, that’s going to be a huge piece of pie. So, I think it just means that if you encourage members to be wealthy on the back end, that means that you’re going to get some of that money, too. The final thing I thought of when it comes to how the church got this much money is how much they focus on additional giving to the church. So, they have an entire philanthropies arm where they call members. I’ve received calls because I went to BYU of them saying, “Hey, do you want to donate to BYU?” And I’m like, “No, please lose my number.” You can see on their philanthropies page uh if I suggest going and clicking through it because some of the wording is insane.

37:47 Let me read from some of the suggestions. So first they they very heavily are saying hey this is a tax write off that’s something they talk about a lot within this page obviously trying to be like look by giving to us this is going to really help you too. So you know why not get a great tax write off by giving us your stuff. For example, they say that uh the family farm or ranch can make an ideal gift to the church or one of its institutions.

38:13 I don’t know about you, but maybe the family farm should stay in the family. Um equipment or inventory. A painting, sculpture, or other piece of fine art can make an ideal gift. A personal residence may be an ideal gift under the right circumstances. Collectibles that you have enjoyed may now provide more enjoyment and better use. So I mean they’re they’re literally in this list just going down and saying you can give us anything of value and it’s a tax write off and hey give us your family farm also on this website and say hey make the church a beneficiary for when you pass away the church can be your beneficiary and this video actually caused quite a bit of a stir. This is a quote from a video produced by the phil philanthropies um department of the church. It says, “I can give my kids money. I can give my kids cars. I can give my kids real estate. But I cannot give my kids a desire to be honest, a good work ethic, and the ability and desire to serve.” So, if you look at our heavenly father’s plan, he desires to give each of his

39:16 children all that he has. But to qualify for those blessings, we have to become what he has become. Now, I don’t pretend to be like my heavenly father, but for my children, for them to inherit my estate, they will need to become what I am trying to become. And so, to read between the lines here, which is not that hard to do, he’s essentially saying that for his kids to inherit his money, they need to be Mormon. They need to be good members of the church. They need to be active in the church. They need to have temple recommends. They need to be on the Mormon path. And this was produced by the Mormon church’s philanthropies department. So the messaging here is literally disinherit your kids if they’re not righteous enough and give us your money instead because we’re we’re going to do better things with it. Like buy Apple stock.

40:06 One of the comments on this Reddit post says, “I travel the world. I am educated and have a great job, but I know my dad will won’t be won’t be truly proud of me unless I return to church, get married in the temple, and have kids.” Obviously, this has just been a very long list of all of the ways the church, you know, whether they’re dipping into your pocket for the 10%, they’re trying to say, “Hey, give us your family farm, send your kid on missions, send them to BYU, you know, whatever, you know, buy buy your religious underwear from us, buy your journals, buy your scriptures, everything.” You know, all of these things are ways that they are just continuously saying, “Give us your money.” And that’s how they have this massive amount of money. But that’s I I I still there’s still more to get into.

40:53 So let’s talk about tax loopholes. And I think highlighting this is a really important aspect of explaining how they got this much wealth because in the United States, uh, churches that make money are not taxed. So uh, you know, you or I, we pay taxes to the government. But if I was a church, um, I would not have to pay taxes in the United States. And that’s not the case in every country in the world, but it is the case in the United States. And so what the church does is rather than paying taxes in other countries. So say a Mormon goes and gives tithing to somebody in in some other country, the church gets that money out of the country and brings it to to the United States where it doesn’t have to pay taxes on it. Whereas if it kept it in the country, it it might depending on the country’s laws have to pay taxes on that money. And so imagine there’s wealthy families like the Marriotts who are paying 10% of their income from

41:51 these hotels to the Mormon church. Maybe they’re paying on the gross. They’re paying 10% of their gross earnings to the church. And then none of that money is taxed. And then the church starts an investment arm called Enzyme Peak in the 1900s and invests that tax-free money into the stock market and into land and things like that. And the I, you know, the the ability to grow that nest egg more quickly when it is simply not taxed is just much easier. You know, this is like a this is a magic wand that churches can can wave that basically no one else can wave without t doing tax fraud. Basically, uh this tax-free ability make means that they just can grow their wealth so much more exponentially than most other people’s or individuals or businesses can.

42:40 Another reason why they want to bring it to the United States is that in the United States, churches are significantly more protected than in other parts of the world. The court systems, they really protect religious freedom and church’s rights. This means that, you know, people have actually tried to sue the church over their tithing. So, there’s multiple tithing lawsuits that have happened and nobody’s ever won. First, they won’t win in Utah because the church has, you know, most of the judges, most of the politicians are Mormon and so it’s going to be very unpopular for them to rule against the church. But also because just in the United States in general, there is a high deference for religious freedom.

43:24 Additionally, obviously, as I read from that tithing slip, even if you know, someone’s willing to bring a tithing lawsuit and even if the the people, you know, the judges are maybe likely to be more sympathetic, the church has has gone above and beyond as well to make it clear that the church that the money belongs to them. They’ve crossed their legal tees and dotted their legal eyes to make sure that it’s basically ironclad that they get the money and you voluntarily gave them this money which means you don’t get a say in how it’s used and that the book is closed uh more or less. The Mormon church also is protected in courts uh because they have a massive legal team. So they have uh you know your church didn’t have an investment team. Your church didn’t have a legal team. Um the church’s legal team is called Curtain and Makoni and uh these are their numbers of who works there. So to read from this website, it says there’s 98 partners. There’s 173

44:26 attorneys, two offices, and 51 associates. Imagine if you had a team of lawyers defending you that was this big. This I mean this is like an army of lawyers essentially. If they were all in the same room, it would be an army of lawyers to protect the church’s assets and to ensure that, you know, they get to keep their money, to make sure that if there’s a tithing lawsuit, they’re not going to lose it. And this is that I’m stuttering over my words because the magnitude of this is so hard to describe. And so a lot of this, you know, whether it’s the tax-free income or the non-discretion around how they’re spending the funds, whether it’s to build a mall or for charity, this truly, from what I’ve gathered, would not fly in other countries. And so they take all the funds from all these other countries. They bring it to their little safe harbor in Salt Lake City to defend it with an army of lawyers and make sure that that money stays in their hands.

45:25 One of the stories I heard growing up was that there was this man who started a company who’s a member of the church and he had an accountant who was going over all of his finances. And as the accountant is going over the finances, he’s like, “I see you make a 10% donation of your income to this charitable organization.” And I did the math. And if you stop uh basically paying that amount for this donation, then your business will be in the black and you can keep, you know, that’s the profit that you need in order to continue onward or whatever. In the story, the man would always get very indignant and he’d say, “That is my tithing for my church and because I pay that tithing is why I’ve been successful up to this point and I need those blessings and I will not, you know, do not tempt me, Satan. Um, and I will not stop paying tithing.” And in the story, basically a few months later, just as this man thought his business was going to go under, he received a new contract

46:28 for, you know, a huge a huge new contract. And the the check that he got was, you know, some exact sum that he had paid in tithing and it had been revisited unto him or whatever. And that’s just I mean, you know, that’s one example. these these types of stories of, you know, I didn’t have food for groceries, but I paid my tithing anyways, and then I got a check in the mail for, you know, 50 bucks or whatever, and that was exactly the amount I needed in order to pay my tithing. And these these stories are like a dime a dozen um in the church.

47:03 But I did I I compiled a lot of them and put them into my Patreon video, which I said is posted over there on Patreon if you want to hear more. You know, I’ll read some Reddit threads and stuff. So anyways, check that out if you want to. But I wanted to jump into next um the SEC investigation which was really so wild when it happened. Everybody, you know, was talking about it and it definitely created quite a bit of drama both within the church and it just made national headlines. So this happened in 2019. Uh but previous to that and even still the church’s finances have always been basically a black box because of how little they really share with what the reality is. But in 2002 a German reporter asked uh Gordon Behinkley which was a previous prophet about the church’s assets. And Gordon Behinkley said, “Yes, if you count all of our assets, yes, we are well off, but those assets, you have to know this, are not

48:02 money producing. Those assets are money consuming, which was so crazy when I read that in this article, uh, because I recently heard David A. Bednar who’s another there’s so many of these leaders to to get through but he also said this same thing in his little when he was questioned about the money of the church so this is what he said the assets of the church are primarily income consuming they are not income producing short clip but it’s so funny that like sometimes I’ve I grew up hearing some of these clips and then you go back in history and realize that people have been saying the same over and over again. It’s the same canned line to kind of weasle their way out of this questioning. And it’s the same same explanation given every single time. Well, for a church who mostly has income consuming assets, they certainly seem to have a lot of income left to consume. So, in 2019, there was a man named David Nielsen, and he was a former senior portfolio manager at Ensign Peak

49:09 Advisors. So basically he he was a fairly high up uh person within this investment organization and he leaked the this big story to the IRS. To read from the coverage by the Washington Post, it says the confidential document received by the IRS on November 21st accuses church leaders of misleading members and possibly breaching federal tax rules by stockpiling their surplus donations instead of using them for charitable works. It also inclu accuses church leaders of using taxexempt donations to prop up a pair of businesses. And so this really made waves. Uh obviously most major news organizations reported on this because suddenly it became shockingly clear first of all that the church had a lot of money which everyone had kind of guessed but this really put uh some hard evidence behind it and that the church had very purposefully misled and concealed the amount of wealth. They literally made 13 shell companies in

50:15 order to conceal the wealth. It goes on to say, “In a declaration signed under penalty of perjury, Neielson urges the IRS to strip the nonprofit of its taxexempt status and alleges that Ensign could owe billions in taxes.” Uh, you know, because if basically often if you get stripped of your nonprofit status, you retroactively owe taxes. So, this could be billions in back taxes. He is seeking a reward from the IRS, which offers whistleblowers a cut of unpaid taxes that it recovers. And so the SEC investigated and that’s where they ultimately decided to levy a fine against the church. Ensign Peak got a $4 million fine and the church itself got a $1 million fine which as I said at the top is really just a drop in the bucket.

51:01 It’s a slap on the wrist. Uh but I think what it did for the image of the church is what really damaged it. And oh man, I wish if I could be a fly on a wall on the wall of their little accounting department, which is not little, it’s massive. I would love to see how tithing tanked after like after this story broke because I’m I I I know people some people who stopped paying tithing after the story broke. Obviously, people were posting about it online that they weren’t going to even either leave the church or stop paying tithing or something like that. But I wish we had the hard raw data as to how many people said, “I am no longer going to be paying my charitable donation of tithing to this multi-billion dollar corporation so they can buy cattle ranches in Florida and build a mall in Salt Lake City.” Another thing I learned while I was researching this uh story about the SEC violation is that churches in the US do not have a requirement to have a

52:00 financial disclosure. And so charities, for example, just nonprofits, they have to fill out certain forms that disclose how much money they have and what they’re doing with that money. But because of, you know, God bless America, the United States not wanting to have prying eyes into churches because obviously churches are very protected in the United States. Because of that, that’s why the church does not have to disclose. There’s no legal requirement to disclose how much money they have.

52:29 It’s also why I think the widows might report is so so interesting and so phenomenal that people are kind of going around and on the back end cobbling together just how much money the church has. So they’ll do things like look at stock disclosures, they’ll look at land purchases. uh they have a very detailed report and if you want to look more specifically into the church’s finances and what they invest in using that report there it’s very extensive uh they have multiple people working on it and that’s what’s quoted in the Salt Lake Tribune so I suggest checking that out um because they really do a lot of work to try to go around what the church is doing and figure out where the money is being held specifically and so I know it took a long time to get here uh because there’s so many ways in which the church has grown their wealth and protected their wealth and indoctrinated members far and wide and guilted them into getting fire insurance so they don’t get

53:31 burned at the second coming. And so all of these things, all of these tactics combined, uh, whether it’s the, uh, donations from members, whether it’s the taxfree, you know, using taxexempt status as a religion, whether it’s taking money from countries that have different tax laws and bringing it to the US where it will be more protected, or hiring an entire army of lawyers in order to protect that money. That is how the Mormon church became one of the wealthiest churches, if not the wealthiest, on planet Earth. And I think I’ll end just by saying just by reiterating that I just think that this is incredibly cruel. There are so many people who I’ve met personally uh who were struggling financially as members of the church. You know, even my family, we would use clothes from other families um because it was expensive to buy more clothes. And you know, growing up, I feel like the idea that there were often times where even my family didn’t have seem they didn’t we didn’t seem to have

54:32 enough money. Um, and my parents were still paying 10% tithing. And that’s just one person, you know, and I I knew people who struggled financially. Obviously, just to exist in space and time is often means you’re going to struggle financially. And I think to ask, you know, look people in the eyes and ask them to give you their money when they’re struggling to put food on the table and then saying, “Have as many kids as you can.” That’s even what’s even more cruel is like, you know, telling people, messaging members, have a ton of kids, have four kids, have five kids, give us 10% of your income. It’s like bleeding these people dry so they can’t pay for the kids that you told them to have. And I think that the human cost of telling people that their salvation is on the line to and that they should pay tithing is a very cruel doctrine. And I know that paying tithing is not is not just something that

55:29 happens in the Mormon church. It happens in a lot of Christian churches. I was at a coffee shop recently and I heard this man talking and he said that um I think they were just they just had Bibles. They weren’t Mormon. Um they just non-denominational something or other. But the man was talking about how he’s been tithing double because he needs double the blessings because they’re running out of money. I’m like, you’re pay you’re double tithing when you’re running out of money.

55:56 Ah, you know, I just I feel like this is so cruel. And the fact that people have kids to who are relying on them and mortgages and rent to pay and they’re giving this multi-billion dollar church their 10% is just it’s insane. food or tithing, pay tithing. How can you say that with a straight face? You that’s just evil. Uh so anyways, to end with reiterating that, which is my baseline emotion about this subject, thank you so much for watching. Uh I always appreciate anyone who watches to the end of the video cuz uh I know that sometimes these get a little long. So thank you for being here here at the end. If you want to hear more stories about my experiences with tithing, I got a little bit into storytelling this video, but there’s so much more to get into. So, if you want to check out that Patreon video, it’s already posted. I’ll link it below. Thank you so much for watching. Thank you for being here in my new space, which I showed you guys last

56:54 week. Uh, and I’ll see you next