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SEC charges the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints

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Re: SEC charges the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints

#61

Post by boeingUH60 »

mulmen wrote: post #36
boeingUH60 wrote: post #20

Here's a related random fact: Fidelity, the well-known investment firm, runs donor-advised charitable funds for rich clients that in aggregate constitute America's charity [1]. The three largest recipients from those funds? Harvard University, Stanford University, and the Mormon Church...organizations that aren't in any way hurting for money. I guess people fund what they are familiar with and for prestige. 1- https:…

I’m confused. Does this mean my retirement savings somehow benefits or is related to the LDS?

No, these are Fidelity clients that specifically direct sums from their investment accounts to be donated to charity. The donations come from clients that choose to, not Fidelity itself.

Re: SEC charges the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints

#62

Post by sclarisse »

sjsdaiuasgdia wrote: post #9
willk wrote: post #5

I think we really should be looking at the tax-exempt status of religious organizations have that subsidiaries that are doing their taxes and setting up shell companies to hide where money is coming/going.

Better to just get rid of the tax exempt status for religious organizations altogether. They can operate like any other non-profit and be subject to that set of rules, or they can be a regular corporation and be subject to a different set of rules. The religious exemption is a big regulatory gap that doesn't need to exist.

1. The power to tax is the power to destroy, and,

2. Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.

If you want to amend the Constitution that’s another matter.

Re: SEC charges the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints

#63

Post by pwinnski »

boeingUH60 wrote: post #50
lvl102 wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would go one step further and say that donations to religious organizations should not be tax deductible. They are not charities in 99% of the cases.

(Not an American)...I don't see any need for donations (religious or non-religious) being tax-deductible. In my country, it's very simple: here's your income and here's your tax rate (no deductions). What you do with the rest is up to you.

Many countries find it useful to encourage some behaviors and discourage others by means of tax policy. Not just the US, although the US seems to do it quite a bit.

So we have, or have had, tax policies in the US that encourage home ownership, marriage, donations to charity, long-term investment, purchasing electric vehicles or electrifying your house, and more. The results of each of these is mixed, and sometimes contentious, but they're all there because congress decided at one point or another that a thing was worth encouraging or discouraging.

Re: SEC charges the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints

#64

Post by say_it_as_it_is »

> According to the order, the Church was concerned that disclosure of its portfolio, which by 2018 grew to approximately $32 billion, would lead to negative consequences.

If you don't report your trades or positions, you can insider trade all day to your hearts desire, or in this case by the hand of God Almighty

Re: SEC charges the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints

#65

Post by skissane »

sjsdaiuasgdia wrote: post #9
willk wrote: post #5

I think we really should be looking at the tax-exempt status of religious organizations have that subsidiaries that are doing their taxes and setting up shell companies to hide where money is coming/going.

Better to just get rid of the tax exempt status for religious organizations altogether. They can operate like any other non-profit and be subject to that set of rules, or they can be a regular corporation and be subject to a different set of rules. The religious exemption is a big regulatory gap that doesn't need to exist.

The details vary from country to country, of course, but some of the tax exemptions which religious groups get are actually just standard exemptions available to all non-profits, or all charities. English law has long defined "advancing religion" as a "charitable purpose". The Charitable Uses Act of 1601 (aka the Statute of Elizabeth) included "the repair of... churches" as a charitable purpose, and later case law took inspiration from that clause to view "advancing religion" more broadly as a charitable purpose. All common law legal systems have inherited this, although the extent to which they still focus on it varies (the concept still exists in US law too, but my personal impression is the US legal system nowadays pays less attention to it than the legal systems of the Commonwealth.)

When people advocate ending religious tax-exemptions, do they mean to end tax-exemptions specific to religious groups – but not available to charities in general, or non-profits in general? Or do they also mean to deny religious groups their status as charities? Or even their status as non-profits?

Re: SEC charges the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints

#66

Post by tedajax »

sclarisse wrote: post #62
sjsdaiuasgdia wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Better to just get rid of the tax exempt status for religious organizations altogether. They can operate like any other non-profit and be subject to that set of rules, or they can be a regular corporation and be subject to a different set of rules. The religious exemption is a big regulatory gap that doesn't need to exist.

1. The power to tax is the power to destroy, and, 2. Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof. If you want to amend the Constitution that’s another matter.

That seems like an extremely daft interpretation of what taxation is.

Re: SEC charges the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints

#67

Post by throwawaysleep »

CosmicShadow wrote: post #44
ramesh31 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The SEC is, largely, a powerless bogeyman due to chronic underfunding and lack of staff. Another wonderful feature of corporate regulatory capture in the US.

But what kind of staff or funding does it take to say literally different words out of your mouth like, you are fined $5B instead of $5MM? I can do that for free, especially if they are already at the point where they are making the charge. Every fine should be devastating so that they either barely survive or die, and every other company shits themselves for life and we solve the problem.

The lawyers to back it up. Fines and judgements are subject to judicial review.

Re: SEC charges the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints

#68

Post by enraged_camel »

tptacek wrote: post #52
anigbrowl wrote: post #2

- $5 million in fines, for - 22 years of willful reporting violations - using 13 shell companies - to conceal ownership of a $32 billion portfolio I'm sure they're gutted by this ~0.016% fine.

Why would the fine be higher? Presumably it's proportionate to the harm caused, not by the size of the fund.

It should be proportionate to the size of the fund, because one of the reasons fines exist is for the deterrence effect. Ideally you want other potential perpetrators to think twice. Do you think this small fine has that effect?

Re: SEC charges the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints

#69

Post by ok_dad »

mistrial9 wrote: post #48

anti-Church pitchforks come out pretty fast here? it shows that some people simply want to eliminate Church itself, and use bad news to propel that point of view. why not address the actions themselves, specifically; plenty of crooks in the investment game, some of them use Church money it seems.

I personally wouldn't mind eliminating every religious organization, since religion is not any specific organization, but rather a personal belief system and a way to live your own life. Large groups of people (the execs that run the orgs) deriving income and wealth from that personal experience is demented. Christians and others shouldn't be afraid of their religion being destroyed, just the corrupt organizations that prey on their personal beliefs in order to further their own agendas.

Re: SEC charges the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints

#70

Post by tptacek »

shadowgovt wrote: post #60
tptacek wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would the fine be higher? Presumably it's proportionate to the harm caused, not by the size of the fund.

It's actually a settlement, not a fine, which is probably pinned closer to the "This is the amount we think we'd have to pay lawyers to argue the case" value than the "This is how much we would owe if we were found guilty of breaking the law" value.

Right, either way, I'm looking for an intuition about how much an infraction like this should cost. Presumably, the settlement also includes the LDS church's consent to start filing reliable 13F's.

I'm not saying I think 5MM is the right number; I'm just saying I have no intuition for what the number should be, and the rationale I see on the thread seems to be "they're big". If I get pulled over in a Bentley with an expired sticker, I pay the same price as someone in a Kia.

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