Join Simon Southerton and Neville Rochow as they discuss the breaking news story of potentially fraudulent behavior by the LDS Church in Australia.
Original Stories:
- Mormons Inc: Church accused of multinational tax rort
- The Sydney Morning Herald: Labor, Greens push for tax office investigation into Mormon donations
Simon Southerton
- SimonSoutherton.com
- Book: The Sacred Curse
Neville Rochow
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Show Notes:
- 2021 LDS Church Financials (Canada)
- 2019 News Break of Ensign Peak Billion-dollar Fund
- Simon’s Slides
- Mormons Inc: Church accused of multinational tax rort
- The Sydney Morning Herald: Labor, Greens push for tax office investigation into Mormon donations
- ACNA.gov: LDS Charities Australia
- Deloitte: Donating and volunteering behaviour associated with religiosity – Report for Study of Economy Impact of Religiosity on Society
- Scathing Lawsuit Seeks Punitive Damages From Mormon Church
Simon Southerton
- 348-349: Simon Southerton, DNA, Lamanites and the Book of Mormon
- Announcing: The Mormon Doctrine vs. Science Project with Dr. Simon Southerton
Neville Rochow
Thanks. Does this topic of taxes in Australia have any thing to do with James Hamula? Could this be happening in many countries? Maybe James Hamula stumbled across something fishy in New Zealand? Just wondering.. J
I would like to express my appreciation and heartfelt thanks to both Simon and Neville for their courageous efforts in exposing a practice that must stop.
I have been a lifelong member of the LDS Church, and I don’t even recognize it a the church that I was born into. It does not make any sense to me that the Lord Jesus Christ is now involved in this organization.
It is no longer a church, but it is a wealthy and powerful corporation that is focused on money, power and control.
Many sympathies to Australians concerning this. However as you are probably aware the LDS Church in the UK is a Registered Charity. This means that all tithing donations benefit from the government’s Gift Aid scheme. So typically a 20% income tax payer will have their contributions grossed up, members reducing their tithing contributions by 20 x 80ths. In other words the government pays the church a further 25% on what they collect from members. Many members use this arrangement, not just for tithing, but for ward budget, fast offerings etc. (Not sure about contributions to missionaries). In addition to this all chapels are exempt from payment of local council tax (levied on property values) as places of “public religious worship”. This does not apply to the temple, which in a leading case the Church contested all the way to the judicial committee of the House of Lords (circa 1958) Their lordships held that the temple was not a place of public religious worship, since attendance was restricted. I’ve not yet watched the entire podcast but my guess is that the Australian revenue authorities will easily win against the Church on this one.
I was informed many years ago, when in conversation with the Church’s chief finance officer in the UYK that they did have periodic run-ins with the REvenue on the matter of “Deed of Covenant” the predecessor system to Gift Aid. But as far as I know it still operates in the same way.
“Rort” , according to the Oxford English Dictionary is “Australian slang”. As an Englishman I had never come across the word before.
As always, a podcast of rumors, half truths and misinformation designed to confuse and deceive led by a modern day anti Christ .
Jerry, they provided evidence for their claims. Do you have anything to say about that?
Give it up thou learned ones The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints is here to stay and “the gates of hell shall not prevail against it”.