Saturday, December 8, 2012

Pay Lay Missionary


Some of you recall my blog  “Pay Lay Clergy” in which I speculated on the incomes of general authorities primarily based on extraneous sources such as corporate wikis, county property appraisers and other statements made by church leaders.  Now I have some direct evidence supporting these claims.   (And a week after posting this disclosure, we have LDS Inc's stamp of validation on the following document.)

Recently, an anonymous source sent me a document called " the LDS Church's Mission President's Handbook " (©2006 by Intellectual Reserve, Inc.).  The section on finances (Appendix B) is illuminating.  I'll quote some of the Handbook under the fair-use clause for educational purposes.

It begins with this statement:

“While you are serving as mission president, the Church reimburses the necessary living expenses for you, your wife, and your dependent children.”

Note the term “necessary” prefixed to “living expenses”.

These “necessary” living expenses include: “food, clothing, household supplies, family activities, dry cleaning, personal long-distance calls to family, and modest gifts (for example, Christmas, birthdays, or anniversary).”  

Housing expenses include “rent (if leased), utilities, telephones, and Internet connection”;  “gardening and repair or replacement of household items” which includes hiring a gardener if needed for larger lots; “one part-time housekeeper-cook”;  “one mission automobile assigned exclusively to the mission president”;  and any assigned mission vehicle can be used by the wife or licensed dependents for “shopping, taking children to school, or other needs.”

The following “necessary” costs are also reimbursed (or provided directly in the mission home):  

  • Medical expenses (dental, eye care and medically necessary orthodontia)
  • Support for children serving full-time missions
  • One round trip fare for each child under age 26 to visit the parents’ mission
  • Elementary and secondary school expenses for tuition, fees, books, and materials
  • Undergraduate tuition at an accredited college or university (Tuition is waived at Church-owned schools.) 


I was not aware that tuition, paying for the child’s mission, modest Christmas gifts and more were “necessary living expenses”. Also note, mission presidents are requested not to pay tithing on funds (income) reimbursed by the church.

The handbook advises the mission president that “any funds reimbursed to you should be kept strictly confidential and should not be discussed with missionaries, other mission presidents, friends, or family members.”

Mission presidents are warned that they “should not open a local bank account for personal funds received from the Church . . . especially if the account would produce interest (and thus raise income tax questions).”  Instead of allowing mission president control over their personal funds, “a joint personal bank account at Church headquarters is established for you and your wife.” 

The tax issue raised is addressed more fully in the handbook.  The Church avoids tax issues by carefully defining the relationship between themselves and the mission president as a “volunteer religious service” so that “any funds reimbursed to you from the Church are not considered income for tax purposes; they are not reported to the government, and taxes are not withheld with regard to these funds.”

In order to keep quiet the situation, not only are the mission presidents told not to discuss any funds they receive with any member (as quoted above), but also to “not share information on funds you receive from the Church with those who help you with financial or tax matters.”  To “never represent in any way that you are paid for your service.” And “do not list any funds you receive from the Church, regardless of where you serve or where you hold citizenship.”

This secrecy listed in a secret handbook that was formerly only accessible to mission president and general authorities raises the question about the church’s lack of financial transparency.  First of all, if mission presidents get the benefit of all living expenses (necessary and beyond) paid by the Church, including highly expensive benefits like college tuition and gardeners, what do the Quorum of the 70 receive?  What do the 12 apostles earn?  

Secondly, the pretense that the mission presidents are unpaid volunteers is akin to saying the CEO’s of corporations aren’t millionaires when paid only a $200,000 salary but are gifted $5,000,000 to $10,000,000 bonuses and stock options.  What does the IRS say about such lucrative back-door payments (i.e., “reimbursements”)?  
IRS document http://www.irs.gov/taxtopics/tc417.html states:
 “A minister who receives a housing allowance may exclude the allowance from gross income to the extent it is used to pay expenses in providing a home. Generally, those expenses include rent, mortgage interest, utilities, repairs, and other expenses directly relating to providing a home. The amount excluded cannot be more than the reasonable pay for the minister's services.” 
One has to question if gardeners, tuitions, dental plans, dry cleaning, Christmas gifts and more are included in the reasonable pay clause.  

Hold on, even though the mission presidents do receive a large allowance, they are told to never claim any pay, so there’s no gross income from which they can exclude these “reasonable” expenses.  Tricky tricky.  

The latest managing editor of Mormonthink “warned the church that payments to mission presidents should be reported to the UK tax authorities as they were 'employees' under UK tax law.”  We understood “it was discussed at a First Presidency meeting with the Presiding Bishopric and they decided to continue not reporting, and pay any fines when, and if, they were discovered.”

The disclosures found in the well-guarded Mission Presidents Handbook show that not only are the Pay Lay Missionary policies fraught with intentional concealment,  but give near direct evidence that the general authorities and apostles receive generous benefits and reimbursements for most of life’s “necessary” expenses.   Likewise, they wouldn't pay tithing on moneys given them by the church. That is, general authorities don't pay tithing (even though they regularly preach paying it to members.) Perhaps these are justifiable on some level.  If so, why wouldn’t the church acknowledge them and do more than barely meet the legal requirement rather than the acclaimed “obeying, honoring, and sustaining the law”?  

It depends on what "is" is and what "pay" you pay, I suppose.  Slick DC bureaucrats would be proud of Mormon leaders.




The LDS church claims to follow Christ when one of his primary missions was to take care of the poor. However, with ordinary missionaries having to be frugal, missionary couples having to pay for everything, members as free janitors cleaning toilets and them paying tithing when they can't afford their own mortgages, the LDS church by paying for GA's kids private schools, GA's gardeners and GA's up-scale homes has shown its priority to have the poorest members take care of the richest leaders.

34 comments:

  1. So there is written evidence of the movies"lying for the Lord" policy in the handbook?

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  2. Bloody autocheck. "movies" should not be in there!

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  3. Good luck to the LDS Church in removing that document from the Internet :-)

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  4. now your link is gone, anonymous. serious.

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  5. I just downloaded the PDF (54MB).

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  6. Good work! This is unbelievable (and yet, with the Church, is anything ever really unbelievable...?)
    I just cannot believe the crap some people are willing to swallow and look past.

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  7. From the handbook: "You receive a roster each month listing your mission's complement and information about all missionaries assigned to your mission." I'm curious what sort of information the mission president receives about the missionaries.

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  8. "We believe in being subject to kings, presidents, rulers, and magistrates, in obeying, honoring, and sustaining the law."

    Of course you do, of course you do.

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  9. Anonymous, how can I get in touch with you to obtain a copy of that file?

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    Replies
    1. Never mind. I got a copy. XD

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    2. I would like a a copy of that file as well please!

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  10. Is it true that the church does not pay any taxes on the sales and leasings of their condos at city creek? Wondering if all the GA's and 70's get their own mortgage/tax free condo as a clergy privilege.

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  11. How are things removed from the internet archive?

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  12. What about the money they receive from sitting on the boards of church corporations? I know GAs are well compensated for doing nothing but how many mission presidents sit on boards?

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    Replies
    1. I think Twede wrote about that in the other pay lay blog.

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  13. See http://www.reddit.com/r/mormon/comments/14jt1t/how_mormon_mission_presidents_get_paid for why this post is misleading. There's no tax issue here. The centralized accounts are to make it easier to monitor and audit, not to hide it from the government. The IRS has the power to look at those records in an audit, and I'm sure they have. The handbook also states that mission presidents are to keep careful records of their expenses for tax purposes. It also states that the church has cases and research to support the non-payment of taxes on those reimbursement accounts.

    What we have here is a whole bunch of amateur tax lawyering going on, and pretty badly. Even someone with a basic understanding of tax law knows that just because income isn't reported doesn't mean the government can't look at the records.

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  14. M3lvn,
    Perhaps I am cynical but I don't think the IRS is ready to pick a fight with the Mormon church about taxes. They might have looked at it but...

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  15. I don't think your going to be successful painting church leaders as high rollers seeking to hide big dollar incomes from the church members.

    I don't see any reason for church leaders to be kept on the edge of poverty to appease those who want to find any means possible to criticize them.

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    1. Don't be deluded. Do a little searching (or reading) and find that many many of the 12 who've been in church leadership most of their adult life have very lucrative positions and possessions. For example, Monson, a church employee of 40+ years, owns two vacation homes and apparently a ritzy condo in SLC (soon at City Creek). He mentioned one of the vacation homes at GC in Oct.

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  16. Edge of poverty???? are you kidding me? When you overstate your case you have little credabilty
    None of the GA are anywhere near median income. They all have made lots of money in the private/corporate world that is the church in Utah.

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  17. While on my mission in the 90's the new incoming MP handed me a folder of cleared checks that the previous MP wrote...let's just say I wanted to puke after seeing all the THOUSANDS AND THOUSANDS of dollars wasted on "necessary" stuff like trips from South America to Disney World!

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  18. While serving as Bishop and doing everything in my power to stay positive because I loved the people of our stake so much, I used to shake my head at what my friends in the church finance department were telling me as they struggled with their consciences. I was torn because I didn't want to hear it but they wanted someone to understand their guilty feelings and tell them they weren't crazy. Two of the ones I respect most ended up resigning to re-join companies because they couldn't take the guilt.

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  19. I am a little late to the party here but would like a copy of that to add to my collection.

    Could someone who has it email it to me. I use the google mail service and my user name is praxeum33.

    Thank you in advance

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  20. If someone is willing to walk away from their home life for several years to help coordinate services on behalf of a church it would seem reasonable that they get the things reimbursed that they would normally have to earn income to cover. If they would normally be able to earn income for their children to serve missions or go to school because those are important tenants of ones religious practice then that too seems reasonable. As I understand it people don't 'apply' to be a mission president, so if I was to be offered an opportunity to live away from home in voluntary service but this involved being uprooted from my home, community and source of income it seems okay to me, and not excessive.

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    1. But that is not what is expected from the average member who struggles to pay their bills and yet are induced to believe that they have to pay full tithe from their gross income even before paying for their bare necessities even though that is nowhere to be found in the holy writ!

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  21. So who best describes you? Sherem, Nehor or Korihor?

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  22. Does anyone have a link that works to the MP handbook? I would like a copy.

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  23. http://archive.org/details/MissionPresidentsHandbook2006

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  24. Jeremy, go ahead and become a Mormon if you like. Some of us have listened for decades while a church boasts shamelessly that it has "no paid clergy" while practicing as illustrated in this 2006 Mission Pres. Handbook. The higher leaders in the Mormon church get paid while the unsuspecting lay church member works a full time job and then takes on an additional schedule of "church callings" with literally NO PAY. The hierocracy is horrific. You may not get it. I could care less. If you were one of the field workers watching the bosses say they don't get paid while they line their bank accounts, then you'd get it..

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  25. Just go back and search for "2006 Lds Mission Presidents Handbook"

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  26. I heard through the grapevine that my childhood friend Gary Stevenson, the Presiding Bishop, is keenly aware of the shady tax stance taken by the church and is trying to change it. A smart business man for decades, he realizes the exposure risk is not worth the monetary savings. The big 15 are not taking his advice last I heard.... This is all rumor, mind you, but fits the personalities of the players.

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  27. I don't think it is envy or greed, or that those that are paid are necessarily overpaid...or shouldn't be paid...I can't judge, but it isn't disclosed, and it isn't honest to squiggle around the tax laws. And, churches that run for-profit businesses should be paying taxes. If their corporations generously give money to the church, it can be deducted from income in accordance with all tax laws, like any charitable donation is. These deliberate evasions make one think their offices should be on Wall Street not hiding under some undeserved mantle of holiness out in the desert.

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  28. Thank goodness for the voice of reason here. Leave your job and your income for 3 years to work 24 / 7. Pray for and manage hundreds of young kids, etc. How would they earn the tuition, etc. you all are whining about.

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  29. Monson did not work at Key Bank. He and other general authorities were on the local board of directors until the bank became a national bank in the 1990's. They received pay for their board of director duties. I know as I worked at Key Bank and attended party at the President of Key Bank's home and the General Authorities who were or had been board members were in attendance.

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