Whistle Blower Files IRS Complaint

[alas]

Well, looks like they have taken down the article where Andersen states “we are not a wealthy people” or at least the quote. I had bookmarked it: https://news-zw.churchofjesuschrist.org/
but it goes to a bunch of articles now. And the one I found that mentions mtng w/ Zimbabwe VP just says how great church is because they donated 20 million over last 30 YEARS. Lol. https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/chu ... s?lang=eng
They’re scared. And their statements are complete nonsense. Any half brained idiot can see right through it. As far as the FP “they don’t have all the facts” BS goes- well you are exactly right. They haven’t revealed all your billions in mall/land/property assets. Let’s get those numbers too Russ.

You are right that any half brained idiot .....but seeing that many of the TBMs that I know also think tRump is “the chosen one” they are only quarter brained idiots. Yes the church’s statements are complete nonsense, but most TBMs are not even going to read the full statements, let alone think seriously about the logic of a huge fund saved for the second coming after the government crashes and we are all walking back to Missouri and it takes a wheelbarrow full of cash to buy an egg. Maybe the 100 billion will buy 20 gallons of gas so the first presidency can drive rather than walk, at least part way to Missouri.

I agree that this won’t dent most TBM testimonies, but again it is not nothing. It is more bad PR. Some people will think this through and wonder why they need to go without that family vacation, or why they have so little saved for retirement when the church has this kind of money in the bank. They will wonder why they donate so much to the church rather than paying for college for their kids. People in Africa will decide that tithing doesn’t need to come before food or rent. People will wonder why the church can’t afford janitors to keep the building clean, or why the church is spending tithing money, even after they have kept it three years, on the City Creek Mall. And some people will leave the church over this just like some left over Kate Kelly getting ex-ed, or left the church over prop 8, or left the church over Sam Young, or so many other small issues. Different people have different triggers.

[2bizE]

Don’t get your hopes up people. First off, the membership doesn’t care, most of them probably buy the idea that the Church needs to horde money for the Second Coming, however stupid the idea sounds to the rest of the world. Second, the Church has an army of lawyers to keep crap from hitting the fan. Third, the current leadership in the White House loves to pander to religious groups and would have no hesitation in calling off the IRS, unless the President thinks it will embarrass Mitt Romney, he’s unpredictable that way. Fourth, Scientology has demonstrated that fraudulent religions have ways of beating the IRS, and the Church is at least as savvy legally as they are. Fifth, to the members this is just more persecution by Satan and his minions.

By the keys of prophecy with which I have been endowed, and in the name of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, I prophesy this will be a Nothingburger.

I agree that most of the membership doesn’t care and it is because they can’t comprehend what it means to have an extra $100 B floating around.
However, where it will probably do the most harm is with ward budgets. I’m sure most of us have experienced the severely under budgeted youth programs and RS. I know leaders who have contributed much $ themselves to cover costs. I have done that with BSA. The other area is cleaning the church. I can imaging this being a shelf item for many. “WTF, you mean the church has Billions extra and I have to come here on Saturdays and clean toilets?” Or “You mean to tell me that the church is girding billions and I only get $200 budget for 43 YW. You’ve got to be F’n killing me” (that’s what they think, not what they say).

[blazerb]

I dont think this is a nothing-burger to those people who are on the fence about church behavior. What this shows is a disregard for humanity. Folks on the fence see through the end-of-days justification and quickly realize what 7 billion annually could do for the world. And that the church is actively choosing not to drill those wells in Africa. Over the next few days I am going to feel out my TBM relatives, but I wouldn't say its a nothing-burger. It may not bring the church down, but cmon people, quit expecting that. If your expectation is that something is going to make the church implode, then yes, everything becomes a nothing-burger. But if your expectation is that the church will become less and less meaningful and influential in normal people's lives than this is a "yuuuge" win for that.

I know that there are many who attend who do not believe. I'm not sure how many, but based on attendance of the foyer session of Sunday School it's quite a few. There will be more who pay tithing on net (or maybe on increase) rather than gross. Fewer kids will be willing to go on missions. You're right. It won't be nothing, but the church will continue in some form.

[Not Buying It]

I’ve already seen a faithful member post the Deseret News article on Facebook. The believing members totally lapped that spin up. No one is going to be troubled by this who isn’t already troubled by a lot of other things.

In two months it will be largely forgotten. In two years no one will believe you when you say it even happened, no matter how many screenshots or links you show them.

I don’t see this having much of an impact beyond the next news cycle.

[2bizE]

Well, looks like they have taken down the article where Andersen states “we are not a wealthy people” or at least the quote. I had bookmarked it: https://news-zw.churchofjesuschrist.org/
but it goes to a bunch of articles now. And the one I found that mentions mtng w/ Zimbabwe VP just says how great church is because they donated 20 million over last 30 YEARS. Lol. https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/chu ... s?lang=eng
They’re scared. And their statements are complete nonsense. Any half brained idiot can see right through it. As far as the FP “they don’t have all the facts” BS goes- well you are exactly right. They haven’t revealed all your billions in mall/land/property assets. Let’s get those numbers too Russ.

Wow you’re right. I can’t find that quite anywhere other than Jfro18’s Reddit post.



They cut off and reference to the Zimbabwe site which now only shows articles back to Aug 2019.

Elder Andersen said the significance of the meeting with Vice President Mohadi was to “express to him our desire to help improve Zimbabwe.” He noted that Vice President Mohadi had made a specific request for support with the development of clean-water wells in more remote areas of Zimbabwe.

Read more of how the Church plans to help on the Zimbabwe Newsroom website.

Technically, Andersen is correct. “We are not a wealthy people.” We are not. It is commander in chief RMN, corporation sole, that it all belongs to.

[Hagoth]

I don't understand why institutions that claim tax exempt status aren't required to make their finances transparent. It seems like a simple solution for problems like this, and like Scientology. You can choose to either let the sunshine in OR pay taxes. If you're honest in your dealings with your fellow men it shouldn't be a problem.

I have talked about this here before, but I really admire the transparency of the Seventh Day Adventist church which claims about the same size membership. They post all of the details of their finances on the internet every year. Apparently they have nothing to hide. Can you imagine what a nightmare it would be for the LDS church if they were required to do that? It's not that they can't; they boast every year in conference that they have done a thorough accounting.

[græy]

I don't understand why institutions that claim tax exempt status aren't required to make their finances transparent. It seems like a simple solution for problems like this, and like Scientology. You can choose to either let the sunshine in OR pay taxes. If you're honest in your dealings with your fellow men it shouldn't be a problem.

I have talked about this here before, but I really admire the transparency of the Seventh Day Adventist church which claims about the same size membership. They post all of the details of their finances on the internet every year. Apparently they have nothing to hide. Can you imagine what a nightmare it would be for the LDS church if they were required to do that? It's not that they can't; they boast every year in conference that they have done a thorough accounting.

Hear, hear!

[Tacenda]

I’ve already seen a faithful member post the Deseret News article on Facebook. The believing members totally lapped that spin up. No one is going to be troubled by this who isn’t already troubled by a lot of other things.

In two months it will be largely forgotten. In two years no one will believe you when you say it even happened, no matter how many screenshots or links you show them.

I don’t see this having much of an impact beyond the next news cycle.

Agree, how many times have we had something like this happen? Nothing ever makes a dent it seems to show the church doing anything wrong. They are pretty much damage proof, because of the faith of it's members and to the believer, these types of things make them dig deeper into that kind of faith.
And if the IRS does make the church pay a fine or ? It will make the believer despise the members that speak up. It will further divide the non believers and the believers.

[oliblish]

Well, looks like they have taken down the article where Andersen states “we are not a wealthy people” or at least the quote. I had bookmarked it: https://news-zw.churchofjesuschrist.org/
but it goes to a bunch of articles now. And the one I found that mentions mtng w/ Zimbabwe VP just says how great church is because they donated 20 million over last 30 YEARS. Lol. https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/chu ... s?lang=eng
They’re scared. And their statements are complete nonsense. Any half brained idiot can see right through it. As far as the FP “they don’t have all the facts” BS goes- well you are exactly right. They haven’t revealed all your billions in mall/land/property assets. Let’s get those numbers too Russ.

Unfortunately that site was not archived by the Wayback Machine. Is there any other site where that quote can be found?

[Red Ryder]

Unfortunately that site was not archived by the Wayback Machine. Is there any other site where that quote can be found?

The full article is on archive.org.

https://web.archive.org/web/20190429193 ... es-support

[Hagoth]

The full article is on archive.org.
https://web.archive.org/web/20190429193 ... es-support

This is very telling.

...Vice President Mohadi had made a specific request for support with the development of clean-water wells in more remote areas of Zimbabwe.

“We want to help in every way we can,” said Elder Andersen. “We are not a wealthy people but we are good people, and we share what we have,” he added...

Elder Andersen also shared with Vice President Mohadi news that the Church planned to begin construction of the Harare Temple in late 2019, an edifice that will bring special blessings to the people of Zimbabwe.

Not wealthy enough to dig wells but wealthy enough to build temples which require attendees to pay 10% of their meager income to a corporation that's sitting on more than $100 billion.

I wonder what Jesus would do?

Does anyone know if the church provided any help on getting clean water for Zimbabwe? "We share what we have" suggests that they could have solved the entire problem with the snap of their finders. I would feel better if I could learn that they raised one (finger, that is).

ETA: I can find plenty of references online to the church doing missionary outreach in Zimbabwe but nothing about helping with their water concerns. I also found claims on the church's philanthropies site that they are providing clean water to poor countries all over the world. Interestingly, Zimbabwe is not one of those countries:
https://www.ldsphilanthropies.org/human ... ean-water
Also, when you click on the More Information link you see that this is really a website for soliciting funds. All this link does is explain why you can't give to a specific cause, but only contribute to the Humanitarian Fund in general...
https://www.ldsphilanthropies.org/human ... -charities
...the same fund that the tithing slip now includes in money that belongs to the church to do with as they damn well please.

No doubt much good is done with (some of) the money from this fund. I have known people who have gone on wheelchair distributing missions, but I don't believe they are using donations from the church, it is money that the church is soliciting apart from all of the wealth they have accumulated and, of course, all of the labor is donated. A big part of those missions seems to be finding donors to fund the projects with their own charitable giving. And good for them. The leadership could learn something about giving from their members.

[blazerb]

I have been trying to come up with reasons why the church would build up such a huge reserve. As noted, it can't be used in the millenium. The run up to Armageddon would also certainly lead to the fund being useless. Even a severe economic downturn would decimate the reserve leaving it virtually useless. The only purpose I can see is that its interest can be used to keep funds coming in as tithing decreases. I think the existence of this fund implies that the highest leadership knows that tithing is drying up. They want to keep their operation functioning even if there are very few tithe-paying members keeping the temples open.

If anyone has some other purpose, I would love to hear it.

[alas]

I have been trying to come up with reasons why the church would build up such a huge reserve. As noted, it can't be used in the millenium. The run up to Armageddon would also certainly lead to the fund being useless. Even a severe economic downturn would decimate the reserve leaving it virtually useless. The only purpose I can see is that its interest can be used to keep funds coming in as tithing decreases. I think the existence of this fund implies that the highest leadership knows that tithing is drying up. They want to keep their operation functioning even if there are very few tithe-paying members keeping the temples open.

If anyone has some other purpose, I would love to hear it.

Greed

[StarbucksMom]

Hagoth, I’m not going to quote the whole thing but your whole post is the EXACT thoughts and questions I have been having. I re-read the article after RR linked the old one and thought-WTH? We can build temples in Africa with fancy furniture and chandeliers but we can’t SAVE African children’s LIVES by spending a tiny portion of the Lord’s 100 BILLION on clean water wells?????? I just can’t even comprehend this.

So then I wondered-so did they ever fund any water projects in Zimbabwe? And Hagoth I really appreciate you looking into this. It appears Andersen was just brushing off or trying to BS talk the VP, knowing full well the “church” (I actually feel ill writing “church” for LDS Inc) would never actually spend their $ on such a large but desperately needed project.

A month or 2 ago my husband and I watched the Netflix (think it was Netflix?) documentary about Bill Gates. Fascinating stuff, we like documentaries, if you do too check it out. Anyway, one part talks about how Bill and his wife were reading some article(s) and learned of all the children in the world dying of diarrhea. And they were like “what??? why is this happening?” Kids here don’t die of this, this is unacceptable, etc. They showed kind of graphic footage of children swimming in filthy water while villagers empty poop into the swim/water holes because they have no where to dispose of it. And talked to kids who lost a bunch of siblings/family because they simply don’t have clean water and toilets. And once he learned that they needed clean water and proper toilets, he funded huge research projects with the smartest people from top universities and companies to find solutions. Then he funded the building of some of these systems for poverty and disease stricken villages.

I showed the whistleblower article to my kids that were home yesterday, and they were like “mom the church is the 4th richest company in the world.” Then they were doing calculations on what I could find of how much the church gives to charity each year and they were just dumbfounded. I left the article up on the computer so my husband could see it when he got home, and I saw him reading it. I didn’t say anything because he’d had a very long day at work. But I’m going to, and thanks to RR and Hagoth I will point out the original article in the mormon news, and the follow up that Russ & co. didn’t open up their freaking 100 BILLION DOLLAR POCKET BOOK to help Zimbabwe after they specifically asked for help. And I’m going to ask my husband if we can get the Hell out of this sick cult and take our kids to a Christian church. We are only going for him (I am barely active) none of my kids believe in Mormonism they all want out. Thank God we haven’t paid tithing in at least 6-7 years.

[Red Ryder]

Perhaps they did help build water infrastructure in Zimbabwe. Not the church side of the house but the investment side aka EPA?

What if Andersen was meeting with the country leaders to work an investment deal under the guise of religion?

Promising investment loads, resources, etc in return for gain and profit?

Removing the Andersen quote doesn’t make any sense other than to hide the bad optics unless they were trying to hide a quite promising investment.

We can’t see the church making donations but anyway to see what types of investments were made in an emerging market like Zimbabwe?

What are they hiding by removing the quote?

[Newme]

Try this one...the church has taken your tithing and invested it. The church now makes more profit off your tithing than actually paying tithing...essentially, there is no need to pay tithing any longer as your tithing seed has now blossomed and is covering the need to pay future tithing...ah the beauty of compounding interest.

Can we somehow get that in the manuals? That is a beautiful and true testimony of compound interest and the extra cash will help many members!

[Newme]

Yea Trump should join the church as they are both great liars !!!!!!!

... & narcissists. (& I voted for him - not the 1st time but when it was him or Hillary)

[Newme]

Let’s forget about this for a second.

What new policy or much needed change will be released to shift attention away?

Please... no garments! no garments! No garments!!!!!!

Hm... maybe...

*Major humanitarian announcement or focus to make the church look better
*1 hour church
*Home-churching
*Home missionarying (wait, they already did)
*Major temple ordinance change
*Genealogy and family history (because that & temple work bring in tithe/money most)
*New and approved garment bottoms that look like regular underwear
*Temple in embassy in stolen Isis-ra-el.
*The church changes its name to “The church of the corporation of the president of the church of Jesus Christ of Latter, Former, Present and Future-Day Saints at Temple Square”
*Cyber wards - first 50% get to choose their ward!
*Starbucks opens at BYU - serving hot drinks like chocolate milk etc

[Newme]

Let’s forget about this for a second.

What new policy or much needed change will be released to shift attention away?

Please... no garments! no garments! No garments!!!!!!

FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT IS GOOD, YES PLEASE.

Garments are the worst part of Mormonism and a constant reminder of the control they hold over you and those you love.

And they are ugly as sin.

How weird to know what each other’s underwear looks like. Where else could you take a chapel full of people and they all have the same underwear? We all look goofy and know we all do... or did - for those of us who ditched them. This cult is funny when it isn’t heart-breaking.

[Newme]

I have been trying to come up with reasons why the church would build up such a huge reserve. As noted, it can't be used in the millenium. The run up to Armageddon would also certainly lead to the fund being useless. Even a severe economic downturn would decimate the reserve leaving it virtually useless. The only purpose I can see is that its interest can be used to keep funds coming in as tithing decreases. I think the existence of this fund implies that the highest leadership knows that tithing is drying up. They want to keep their operation functioning even if there are very few tithe-paying members keeping the temples open.

If anyone has some other purpose, I would love to hear it.

Maybe... and this is speculating... some of those controlling funds are tied to those who want a one-world government through religion...

“Zbigniew Brzezinski, former National Security Advisor and Trilateral Commision insider, advised his Illuminati superiors that the New World Order can be established only be employing religion as a key weapon of global influence.”
http://www.texemarrs.com/012005/illumin ... infamy.htm

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgia_Guidestones