It’s Not Taxes

April 2, 2022 by

A popular legal Twitter personality has an evergreen tweet: “It’s not RICO.” See, RICO (the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act) has become a super-popular rhetorical crime. Trump violated RICO; antifa violated RICO; I’m probably violating RICO just by posting this!

The thing is, RICO is a very narrowly-tailored law. There are specific criteria a crime has to meet to violate RICO and basically, if you hear someone say that somebody else violated RICO, you can be about 99% sure not only that they’re wrong, but that they have absolutely no idea what they’re talking about.

I thought about that the other day when a friend pointed me to a clip from a popular Mormon-themed podcast.[fn1] In the clip, the podcaster makes a blockbuster announcement: the podcaster has just discovered why the church builds so many temples. Specifically, the podcaster was told by an “inside source”:

It turns out that for the church to maintain its tax-exempt status, for the Mormon church to maintain its tax-exempt status as a charity or as a church, it has to do something with its money. And so building temples is one of the major ways the church can spend a boatload of money with all this cash that it keeps collecting and stay in business and be perceived as a charitable institution.

[Read more…]
Filed Under: Current Events, Internet & Social Media, Modern Era, Mormon, Rants, Society & Culture Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

Hugh Pinnock, Mark Hofmann, and Taxes

March 17, 2021 by

Last week I mentioned that, in anticipation of Murder Among the Mormons I was reading Victims. And I talked about Mark Hofmann’s tax planning.

I’m only a little bit further through the documentary today (I finished the first episode), but I’ve made a bunch of progress on the book. And, reading it last night, another tangential tax issue leaped out at me.

See, it turns out that when Hofmann needed to borrow money from First Interstate Bank, Elder Hugh Pinnock of the Seventy put in a good word for him. Pinnock assumed that Hofmann was a legitimate documents dealer who had a big deal in the works. And the bank apparently assumed that either Pinnock or the church itself was guaranteeing the loan.

[Read more…]
Filed Under: Film & Television, Modern Era, Mormon Tagged With: , , , ,

Options for Financial Transparency

December 17, 2019 by

DSCF3468

In today’s Deseret News, Hal Boyd and Lynn Chapman defend the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints against whistleblower allegations that the Church has amassed a $100 billion “Second Coming” fund.  The editorialists argue church members should be proud that an institution only three generations removed from crippling debt is now financially stable.  Boyd and Chapman then acknowledge:

Of course, it’s fair game to question whether the reserves are adequate or excessive, or whether specific actions with funds are proper, as the Post article and the whistleblower does.  Vast assets require controls and nonprofit reserve investments can be controversial.

I agree wholeheartedly: let’s start asking questions about Church finances.  But first, we need Church financial disclosures. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Mormon Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , ,

On Satan’s Plan, Tax Edition

August 9, 2019 by

A couple days ago, I got a message from a friend, asking how I respond to people who claim that taxes are Satan’s plan. Honestly, my instinct would be to respond, “That’s stupid,” block the person on Twitter, and get on with my life.

But that doesn’t work in every circumstance. I mean, if your interlocutor is standing in the checkout line next to you, blocking isn’t really an issue. And if your interlocutor is, I don’t know, your father-in-law, calling him stupid may not be the optimal approach. (And honestly, if the person is speaking in good faith, dismissing them like that is rude and unfair.[fn1])

So how would I address a good faith assertion that taxation is Satan’s plan? Depending on the person, I’d probably take one of a couple routes: [Read more…]

Filed Under: Current Events, Economics, Internet & Social Media, Mormon, Politics, Society & Culture, Theology Tagged With: , , , , ,

Come Listen to a Blogger’s Voice (About Taxes and Religion and Stuff)

April 9, 2019 by

On Friday, I sat down in a law school conference room with two of my students. They’d set up a pretty impressive array of microphones and mixers and a laptop, and pushed aside the Redweld folders that, for some reason, took up half of the table. These students started Dialogue, De Novo, a podcast that centers around the Loyola University Chicago School of Law community. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Current Events, Mormon, Religion, Society & Culture Tagged With: , , , , , ,

The Church Is Going to Pay More In Taxes

January 28, 2019 by

In 1972, the church opened its new Church Office Building at 50 East North Temple Street. The 28-story building, built by Christiansen and Clyde Construction Company for $31.3 million, allowed scattered church employees to all work under one roof. Initially, about 1,500 employees, who had been at 16 different locations, moved into the building. It was originally slated to provide office space to over 2,000 employees. And so that those employees could make it, the Church Office Building had 1,250-spot underground parking garage.

And the existence of that 1,250-spot underground parking garage means that the church owes federal income taxes for 2018.

Because yes, the church owes taxes for last year. And, perhaps to church members’ surprise, those taxes aren’t the result of secular liberals who hate Mormons/religion/God. Those taxes are the result of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, the GOP’s late-2017 tax reform that was both conceived of and passed without any input or votes from Democrats.  [Read more…]

Filed Under: Current Events, Economics, Mormon, Politics, Society & Culture Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

A Class Tax: Utah Taxpayers in 1920

December 17, 2018 by

The other day, I did a quick search on the Library of Congress’s Chronicling America site to see if I could find any information about prominent Utah or Mormon taxpayers.

See, today’s tight privacy of tax return information hasn’t always existed. For a couple of years in the 1920s, Congress required taxpayers to publicly disclose their tax payments; apparently, newspapers had a field day publishing the tax payments (and refunds) of the wealthy and the famous.[fn1] I was curious if Utah newspapers did the same.

But I got distracted on my first hit, from the Lehi Sun. It didn’t release the names of taxpayers, or what they paid, but it did give a snapshot of Utah’s taxpaying from 1916-1920.[fn2] [Read more…]

Filed Under: Economics, Society & Culture Tagged With: , , ,

#TaxDay 2018: For Ye Were Strangers

April 17, 2018 by

The foreigner who resides with you must be to you like a native citizen among you; so you must love him as yourself, because you were foreigners in the land of Egypt.   —Leviticus 19:34

My liturgical calendar tells me today is Tax Day,[fn1] and so it’s time for another installment of my annual Mormons and Taxes post.

This year’s has nothing to do with the income tax, and, in fact, very little to do with the United States. Instead, we’re going to look south of the border to the Mormon colonies in Mexico. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Holiday, Mormon Lectionary Project, Post-Manifesto Era, Society & Culture Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Picturing 1867 Utah Tax Assessments

September 7, 2017 by

I’ve been looking through 1860s Bureau of Internal Revenue records from the district of Utah for a project I’ve been working on. (It’s a really interesting project; once I get a handle on what I’m going to write, I’ll blog some interesting tidbits.)

As I was looking through the assessment lists, I came across a (pretty decent) doodle of a person’s head. I don’t know anything about who drew the doodle (was it the assessor? the assistant assessor? somebody who got his or her hands on the list later?). I don’t know who the doodle represents (is Stubb or Stout or Shoebridge? or is it a self-portrait? or a generic picture?). [Read more…]

Filed Under: Pre-Manifesto Era Tagged With: , , , ,

Trump, Tax Reform, and Mormons

May 1, 2017 by

On Wednesday, Donald Trump released his tax reform plan.

Scratch that: he released a one-page outline detailing highlights of what he wants his tax reform plan to look like. But even with its limited details, as my friend and colleague David Herzig points out, it is worth taking seriously. Presidents have traditionally had some power to shape tax reform according to their priorities, and at the very least, Trump’s Wednesday memo provides insight into his tax preferences.

And, because this blog focuses on Mormonism, here’s a great place to ask this question: how will his tax priorities affect U.S. Mormons? [Read more…]

Filed Under: Current Events, Economics, Politics, Society & Culture Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Obligatory #TaxDay Post

April 18, 2017 by

Happy Tax Day![fn1]

Most years (and maybe every year) I do a tax post on Tax Day. I’ve been struggling to think of one the last couple days, though: there haven’t been a whole lot of Mormon tax (or even religious tax) developments over the last several months, and those few there have been[fn2] I’ve already posted on.

So I thought that I’d do something that isn’t really timely, but is interesting. See, as I was researching for my book,[fn3] I came across a Tax Court decision that dealt with the Church of Jesus Christ. I’m pretty sure, name notwithstanding, the Church of Jesus Christ is not part of the family of Mormon churches,[fn4] but its web presence is really, really limited, so most of what I know about it comes from the court’s opinion. Even if the Church of Jesus Christ isn’t a Mormon church, though, the case itself has to engage with Supreme Court tax precedent that is the result of the Mormon church. So here goes: [Read more…]

Filed Under: Society & Culture Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Trump’s Tax Proposals and Mormons

December 6, 2016 by

It occurred to me this morning that Trump’s tax plan, if it passed in its current form, would impact many middle- (and some high-) income U.S. Mormons.[fn1] I mean, it would affect U.S. taxpayers in general, but it would have a particular effect on the deductibility of tithing.

The church cares about deductibility. In 2011, Elder Oaks gave testimony to the Senate Finance Committee that the charitable deduction is vital to the nation’s welfare.

And why might that be? Basically, because it reduces the cost of charitable giving, at least for taxpayers who itemize their deductions (more on that in a minute). For example, imagine I’m in the 25-percent tax bracket and I itemize. If I write a tithing check for $1,000, I’ve made a $1,000 charitable donation, and the church has an additional $1,000. But the after-tax cost to me of that donation was $750. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Current Events, Economics, Politics, Society & Culture Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Tl;dr: The #PanamaPapers

April 5, 2016 by

Note: if, for some reason, you’d rather get this information in the style of a morning newscast rather Panama_Skylinethan read it, I’ve got a link for you at the end of the post.

You’ve probably heard by now about the Panama Papers leak: basically, the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists got 40 years of documents (about 11 million documents, or 2.6 terabytes of data) from Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca.

Mossack Fonseca apparently specializes in creating offshore entities and otherwise providing the tools people need to hide their money. (Note that the law firm claims it didn’t do anything wrong, and that there are non-illegal and -immoral reasons for putting money offshore.)

Even though there’s nothing Mormon about the leak, it’s a big enough thing that Mormons (and, frankly, everybody else) should know something about it. In Q&A format. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Current Events, Economics, Politics Tagged With: , , , , ,

In Which I Unpack a Finance-Based Atonement Parable (or Mammas Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up to Work on Wall Street)

July 31, 2014 by

Understanding the Atonement is tough.[fn1] To try to understand it, theologians have come up with theories to describe the whys and hows of the Atonement, and stories to illustrate how the Atonement works.

We’ve got a handful of favorite illustrative stories in Mormonism, including bicycles and lickings. I was recently reading chapter 12 of the Gospel Principles manual, and I came across an Atonement story that I haven’t seen in a while: a parable of a debtor and a creditor. What follows are my thoughts as I reread it:[fn2]  [Read more…]

Filed Under: Economics, Mormon Tagged With: , , , , , ,