Comment by bruckie | Hacker News Reader

Comment by bruckie | Hacker News Reader

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No. I've been a member all my life in several U.S. states and internationally, and I've also been a volunteer finance clerk at church for many years. I've never been asked for tax forms, or even heard of anyone being asked for tax forms. It's not a thing.

Also, there's no prescriptive guidance on pre-tax vs. post-tax, or how to handle many edge cases, such as capital gains, tax deductions, etc. The church's stance is that it's between you and God to figure out how to apply the "pay 10%" guidance.

Old, but still observed: https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/ensign/1974/04/i-h...:

“...the simplest statement we know of is that statement of the Lord himself that the members of the Church should pay one-tenth of all their interest annually, which is understood to mean income. No one is justified in making any other statement than this. We feel that every member of the Church should be entitled to make his own decision as to what he thinks he owes the Lord, and to make payment accordingly.”

The quote you provide is grossly misleading, as that isn’t what tithing meant in the early days of the church. The church just says “which is understood to mean income” so causally that it’s essentially a lie. They say that to get more money. They hold peoples salvation at gun point to make sure it gets paid. And then they use their wealth and influence to drive state policy. It’s all very gross.

Not quite following your point? What about that is a lie?

At the beginning of The Church of Jesus Christ, saints were asked to consecrate all that they had to the bishop. Legally they signed away all rights to their property and the bishop leased it back to them.

They found that that wasn't sustainable (due to debts and disputes) and switched to 10% of interest (see Section 119 in D&C, https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/scriptures/dc-test...). While tithing was paid in the past with animals, food, etc, that just doesn't scale beyond local communities.

Yes, our church does use funds for advocacy, but it's hard to ascribe pure malice to a church that spends $1 billion annually on humanitarian aid every year, and is expanding affordable education to tens of thousands of people in developing countries.

Not all of us agree with how much money is being held in reserve, but it's important to understand that we don't have a testimony in the church because of what we get from it, or even agree with all policies, but rather because of a personal witness of its truth. It is true that some stay in our church because of social pressure, and I'm not going to defend that practice. But, that's not what our core doctrine teaches.

I understand that it's easy to think that we are all a homogenous group that all thinks the same, but peek under the surface and you'll find many of us who find the core doctrine so compelling that we are willing to stick with the church and to enact change in constructive instead of destructive ways.

> it's hard to ascribe pure malice to a church that spends $1 billion annually on humanitarian aid

Where did your number come from? I've just read "Globally, the church boasted that it had spent US$40m on humanitarian aid in one year (2015)" from https://businessdesk.co.nz/article/full-page/behind-the-nz-m... (seems like a good article)

Bing says as of 2023, the church's net worth is estimated to be around $265 billion which would be income of $16 billion (assuming a conservative 6% annual ROI). I'm unsure how correct those numbers are since the article says (US$15.7b land and US$100b investment fund).

The Mormon church earns $7 billion a year from tithing. Even if humanistic aid were $1 billion - it is a relatively poor percentage.

Let's consider healthcare to be humanitarian aid (yeah, obviously not external). Governments spend 30% of taxes on healthcare, and people pay 30% in taxes so we might estimate that people are paying appromx 10% on humanitarian aid via their government. Although perhaps that is just a form of insurance you've paid in and you get paid out. I'm unsure of the statistics but my guess is that most people pay a lot in and get a little out due to skewed distribution of sickness costs. With health insurance the best deal is to never get sick and never claim (and your premiums help the poor bastards that do get sick - the best outcome a society could hope for). Note that health insurance in New Zealand is wildly different from the US model.

I've had a little experience watching how the Mormon church acts in Samoa which is definitely not a wealthy country. I would be interested to know how much of that humanitarian aid was paid for by countries that needed the humanitarian aid? The equivalent to paying in and getting paid out (with the church claiming doing good with the paying out, but not talking about what it keeps).

I'm a little cynical that there's some dissimulation by the LDS church - they are not well known for frank openness.

Hi! Yes, I believe that is correct for 2015. It's been fairly recent that the amount spent has ramped up a lot[1].

A lot of money also goes towards subsidizing education (All the BYUs, including the online classes that are targeted towards developing countries), building churches and temples, supporting local congregation budgets, and supporting church members who are financially insecure (I'm not sure if they counted that last part in the 2024 summary though).

> I've had a little experience watching how the Mormon church acts in Samoa which is definitely not a wealthy country.

Looks like they have a summary here: https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/serve/caring/annual-summ...

> I'm a little cynical that there's some dissimulation by the LDS church - they are not well known for frank openness.

Yeah, it would be nice if they were more transparent here. I understand the legal reasoning--essentially security by obscurity--but it's frustrating to only get peeks and glimpses. I don't blame you for some healthy cynicism.

[1] https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/serve/caring/annual-summ...

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