Well, it was a race to the finish as to who’d land the story Monday night about a secret –- and possibly illegal – -$100 billion fund made up of Mormon tithes
We think the Washington Post made it to the finish line first, but it was neck-in-neck with Paul Glader, the former Wall Street Journal reporter who now oversees Religion Unplugged. It should be noted that GetReligion and Religion UnPlugged do share some content, but I’m not privy to how Glader got the story other than his note atop his piece that says a source called him in November.
Glader was working solo for the past month or so; the Post had three people on this story plus another two helping out, not to mention the former IRS official they pulled in for advice. I am glad that the Post didn’t just rely on its business reporters but pulled Michelle Boorstein, its senior religion-beat writer, onto the story.
I am curious why the two Salt Lake newpapers totally missed this story as did the Journal, which is usually on top of financial scandals but has continues to lag way behind on breaking religion news.
We will start with ReligionUnplugged:
NEW YORK — A whistleblower complaint filed at the Internal Revenue Service in November by a knowledgeable church member alleges that a non-profit supporting organization controlled by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints used member tithes to amass more than $100 billion in a set of investment funds and the Church misled members about uses of the money.
The complaint may be the most important look at LDS finances in decades, a window into one of the wealthiest religious organizations in the United States and the world. Details of the IRS filing reveal financial assets largely hidden from the church’s membership (often known as “Mormons”) and the public view.
The 74-page document filed with the IRS and obtained by Religion Unplugged shows that Ensign Peak Advisors, Inc. (EPA) owned assets under management grew to more than $100 billion from $10 billion in the past 22 years, fueled by a mix of investment strategy and tithe money from church members.
Ensign Peak is an arm of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
A former Church member in Minnesota named Lars Nielsen published a 74-page document filed with the IRS that makes several allegations…The whistleblower worked with Nielsen on a two-month research project to research and explain the inner workings of EPA. The complaint (Form 211) was filed with the IRS whistleblower office on Nov. 15, 2019 and received by the IRS on Nov. 22, 2019. Nielsen has chosen to go public with the allegations by releasing the report online and explaining the allegations in videos.
“I started to suspect that EPA was not compliant with its 501c3 or acting in accordance with its Articles of Incorporation around 2013,” the whistleblower writes on a notarized cover letter to the IRS obtained by Religion Unplugged. “I raised several flags and concerns over the years.”
What’s especially nasty is this:
The whistleblower document alleges that EPA has given away $0 to religious, educational or charitable purposes. …
Which sounds unbelievable. But the claim is that some money did go toward was building a modish downtown mall.
Nielsen says the Mormon “giga-church” needs “a place to park its cash” and has used EPA to do so. Nielsen alleges EPA grew from regular tithes by members of the LDS Church, most of whom had no idea of how their money was being spent or invested given the lack of public financial disclosure by the church since 1959.
The article included helpful sections on Mormon history, its financial assets and the culture among Mormons that one must give away 10 percent of one’s income, or to tithe.
The Post slapped an “exclusive” tag on its story, which Glader found quite problematic in that information was being handed out to a lot more media than just the Post.
Here is the @ReligionMag story, to which we added “EXCLUSIVE” on our site after we saw Wapo doing the same: https://t.co/EWZUNheUOA
Here is the Wapo story, labeled “EXCLUSIVE” on Twitter and the Wapo website: https://t.co/RGcHPcEprF https://t.co/BlFJYgRT78
— Paul Glader (@PaulGlader) December 17, 2019
There are some differences in the Post story, which names the whistleblower (David A. Nielsen, a former senior portfolio manager for EPA) whereas RU does not. It also reveals that his twin brother, Lars Nielsen, went public with the complaint against his brother’s wishes. And the newspaper posted a confidential form for any employee of the LDS Church to provide more information.
No matter how you cut this, it’s a huge scandal in that not a few readers are going to say that the Mormons are behaving like a business and should be taxed accordingly. There were 5,526 comments at the bottom of the Post story by Tuesday night.
Some videos were released along with the complaint, one of which is posted atop this page. It had this classic understatement: “EPA employees are told the money will be used after the Second Coming of Jesus Christ or during Armageddon right before he would come again. The IRS would not view these as legitimate tax-exempt purposes.”
Back to the Post:
Nielsen’s complaint is sharply critical of church leaders for continuing to ask for tithes, even from members who are struggling financially, while the church sits on a fortune. “Would you pay tithing instead of water, electricity, or feeding your family if you knew that it would sit around by the billions until the Second Coming of Christ?” he wrote in a 74-page narrative that accompanied his complaint.
So why now?
Nielsen’s complaint comes as many Mormons across the United States are engaged in discussions with their bishops, traditionally held in December, to “settle” their dues to the church. His estimate of $7 billion in annual revenue points to a relatively high rate of contributions from the 15 million members. By comparison, the Catholic church in the United States was reported in 2005 to receive $8 billion in annual tithes. There were 75 million Catholics in the U.S. in 2010, according to Pew Research Center.
Anyway, the big question here is: How did the Utah papers, specifically the Salt Lake Tribune and the church-owned Deseret News, respond? News about this was posted Monday night, so the Utah media had to really scramble. The lead Tribune story mainly quotes the Post.
Peggy Stack, the Trib’s religion writer wrote about the mainly negative reaction about these revelations:
To many in the more than 16 million-member Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the bigger issues involve how the Utah-based faith spends its extensive funds and why it doesn’t share that information with adherents.
Social media are awash in comments from Latter-day Saints expressing shock and disappointment about the size of the faith’s accounts — especially while tithe-paying families struggle to pay ordinary bills — juxtaposed against statements of pride that the church has managed to accumulate so much money.
She gave some insider info to the effect that,
A few years ago, authorities changed the language on its tithing and donation slips to read: “All donations become the church’s property and will be used at the church’s sole discretion to further the church’s overall mission.”
That was “yet another step away from the greater financial transparency we used to see — for instance, when more robust financial reports were provided to the membership during General Conference,” said Patrick Mason, head of Mormon studies at Utah State University. “Now, not only do church members not know anything substantial about the institution’s finances, but they can’t even be confident that the money they expressly donate for fast offerings or humanitarian relief is actually going to the poor and needy.”
The Desert News had a fairly short piece on the scandal that mostly talked about the charitable outlets that the church was using some of the money to help. There was an accompanying editorial with the headline: “The Washington Post says the Church of Jesus Christ has billions. Thank goodness.”
Don’t think we can look for good investigative reporting from that quarter.
Despite the public shoulder shrugging from Mormon leaders, there’s got to be some lights burning late into the night on this.
If the whistleblower info is accurate, the big question becomes: Who of the ruling Quorum of the 12 Apostles or the First Presidency (the highest governing body of the church that typically includes the church’s president and two of his advisors) have known about this slush fund?
Religion News Service had its Mormon columnist, Jana Riess, cover the news — in an opinion piece. Her report organized the charges into nine grievances to better understand what was at stake. She seemed skeptical that the LDS church would have pulled off a deceptive coup on the scale that Religion UnPlugged and the Post were alleging.
I think the Latter-day Saints are going to have a hard time explaining this one and I’m hoping that a lot more reporters will put some effort into covering this blow-up by asking the questions we’ve all come to know so well: Who knew about this and when did they know it? And why did they do nothing about it? As always, journalists will be trying to follow the money.
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