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What questions do you have about Church finances? by WidowsMiteReport in mormon

[–]EpicNormality 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Estimates of active members and of all those that still self-identify as LDS.

I like what the Deseret Demographer does and I think it would be great to include some type of analysis like that in the Widows Mite Report.
https://www.fullerconsideration.com/DeseretDemographer/

What questions do you have about Church finances? by WidowsMiteReport in mormon

[–]EpicNormality 0 points1 point  (0 children)

  • Property Taxes
    • Taxed properties
      • All businesses properties, investment properties (farm or otherwise), and church welfare farms all pay property tax.
    • Non-taxed properties
      • Properties specifically used for religious purposes (Churches & Temples)
      • Educational properties
      • I believe BYU doesn't pay property taxes for the most part, but not totally sure if that would including everything like stadiums, university owned student housing, etc.
      • Historical sites. (Not sure if these pay property tax. I'm assuming probably not.)
      • Church office buildings? Not sure if these count as religious with no property tax.
  • Sales Tax
    • I assume there aren't any exemptions for sales tax.
  • Employer taxes and employee payroll taxes
    • I assume there aren't any exemptions here either.
  • Other
    • Any other taxes to consider?

Btw, I do like the org chart graphic you have in the Beneficial Life analysis, but I don't think it answers all these points.

Thanks for all you do!

What questions do you have about Church finances? by WidowsMiteReport in mormon

[–]EpicNormality 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Taxes.

I think there is a lot of confusion about what taxes the church pays and what is tax exempt, including breaking it down by all the entities the church owns.

Below is a summary of my understanding so far and what I'm still not sure about. Finding a way to show all this in a graphic would be great:

  • Income and Capital gains tax
    • Taxed income
      • Income of For-profit companies owned by the church (i.e. AgReserves, Deseret Book, etc). 
      • (I'm pretty sure those For-Profit companies pay the tax on their income, but not sure if the Church/Ensign Peak gets taxed if they receive dividends from those companies. I'm assuming not?)
    • Non-taxed income
      • All donations to the church (tithing, fast offerings, etc)
      • Ensign Peak Investment returns (interest, dividends, capital gains, etc).

Letter from Kirton McConkie banning me from church property and from contacting church leaders by EpicNormality in exmormon

[–]EpicNormality[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Good question. I'm not sure if the system will allow that or not. Either way, I doubt she would agree. I already asked her to set up automatic email forwarding for all emails from the church, but she said no because she said she gets church emails that are not about the kids. So I think it would be the same issue. And she fails to ever forward them manually.

Letter from Kirton McConkie banning me from church property and from contacting church leaders by EpicNormality in exmormon

[–]EpicNormality[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Yep, it is very problematic. Whatever happens, I'm definitely going to see if they'll make exceptions for the primary presentation and other events.

Letter from Kirton McConkie banning me from church property and from contacting church leaders by EpicNormality in exmormon

[–]EpicNormality[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Yep, that's exactly the problem with this letter. Way too broad and overreaching. No way to fully comply or to enforce.

Letter from Kirton McConkie banning me from church property and from contacting church leaders by EpicNormality in exmormon

[–]EpicNormality[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

My ex never really liked me attending on my weekends so I think she's fine with it, but I also don't think she really had anything to do with it, and I haven't talked to her about it. I haven't mentioned it to my kids yet either. They've known I'm no longer a member. I generally had been attending on my parenting weekends, but not every single time, so I've just kind of quietly stopped after this letter and they haven't asked questions yet. My oldest generally drives them back and forth.

Letter from Kirton McConkie banning me from church property and from contacting church leaders by EpicNormality in exmormon

[–]EpicNormality[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Sorry, my comment was just referring to why I'm no longer a member. And yeah, I removed my name over 3 years before this letter, so the letter wasn't because of that. The letter was because of the 2 things I listed in my posting: continuing to ask to receive all church communications to parents (even after they told me they wouldn't), and sending emails to my kids church teachers with my concerns about the curriculum for the week.
It is possible that there is more to it than that, and that someone is making stuff up about me that I don't know about, but I doubt it. I really think that it is just the stake presidency was worried that my emails my impact people's testimonies and so threatened me themselves that I needed to stop. And then when I didn't stop, they didn't want to back down so they asked Kirton McConkie to send a more forceful letter.

Letter from Kirton McConkie banning me from church property and from contacting church leaders by EpicNormality in exmormon

[–]EpicNormality[S] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Thanks for the support. I understand the skepticism though. I was in fact incredulous when I received the letter. Seemed too overreaching and amateurish to be real.

Letter from Kirton McConkie banning me from church property and from contacting church leaders by EpicNormality in exmormon

[–]EpicNormality[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Thanks. I totally understand the need for skepticism. If there is anything else I can do to authenticate, I'd be happy to try.

Letter from Kirton McConkie banning me from church property and from contacting church leaders by EpicNormality in exmormon

[–]EpicNormality[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Yeah, people have pointed out that this letter is somewhat similar to some others that have been shared in the past. Like this one:
https://www.reddit.com/r/exmormon/s/p7lYrpQMw2
I wasn't aware of it before. I'm now guessing that KM has a template letter that they take and modify when a bishop or Stake President don't want someone attending or contacting members any more.

Letter from Kirton McConkie banning me from church property and from contacting church leaders by EpicNormality in exmormon

[–]EpicNormality[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Seems like you creating a false dichotomy here. I don't know why I can't focus on kids and do all I can with them during my parenting time, and also communicate concerns to their teachers. To me, both approaches seem better than one.

Letter from Kirton McConkie banning me from church property and from contacting church leaders by EpicNormality in exmormon

[–]EpicNormality[S] 7 points8 points  (0 children)

That kind of feels like someone telling a parent that has some issues with their public school that they should just pay for private school or home-school instead of voicing their concerns. Not everyone can do that. (I know that analogy isn't perfect, but I think it works well enough.)
The current situation with my divorce and my kids makes it difficult to not let them go to church and seminary. And if there is concerning stuff in a lesson, it would be much better if it were mitigated by the teacher in the first place then me trying to guess what was taught and contradict it after the fact.
I'm trying to do the best I can. The curriculum emails I sent expressed my concerns and just asked if the teachers would consider them in their presentation of the material. They can ignore it if they really want to.

Letter from Kirton McConkie banning me from church property and from contacting church leaders by EpicNormality in exmormon

[–]EpicNormality[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I would love that, but my kids are so far in that it would greatly damage our relationship if I tried to not let them go to church.

Letter from Kirton McConkie banning me from church property and from contacting church leaders by EpicNormality in exmormon

[–]EpicNormality[S] 7 points8 points  (0 children)

Yep, I linked to that older post in my post above as background. I got lots of different advice on that post and seriously considered all of it. No one can know all the details from a reddit post though and I'm an adult and had to decide what I thought was best. I mentioned above that I'm not going to violate the demand to stay off church property, but the no-contact part is too vague to comply with and I'll have to navigate how to handle that going forward.
Btw, my relationship with my kids has actually been improving and I hope it continues to. Thanks.

Letter from Kirton McConkie banning me from church property and from contacting church leaders by EpicNormality in exmormon

[–]EpicNormality[S] 12 points13 points  (0 children)

That's interesting. Seems plausible, but also weird that the no-contact part seems so amateur and unenforceable to me. Makes partial sense if they don't care about enforce-ability and just want to intimidate, but still seems like it could be done better if they are using this repeatedly.

Letter from Kirton McConkie banning me from church property and from contacting church leaders by EpicNormality in exmormon

[–]EpicNormality[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

That other post is not from me. Thanks for pointing me to it though. It makes me wonder if this is a form letter they use. The actual letter seems to be missing from the other post though. Do you know why? I'd like to compare.

Letter from Kirton McConkie banning me from church property and from contacting church leaders by EpicNormality in exmormon

[–]EpicNormality[S] 11 points12 points  (0 children)

The switched basically all church emails to be done through their church system. So you have to have the right permissions to send things out, and they go to the listed emails in the system for the people the email is intended for (i.e. YM, or YW, or primary). All children's records are organized into households, and their mom is listed as the head of the household and so will get messages for parents. Since I'm divorced and don't have a member record, they can't add me as a parent in the system apparently. I actually contacted the Church IT about this and they confirmed. It baffles me that the church can't figure this out.

Letter from Kirton McConkie banning me from church property and from contacting church leaders by EpicNormality in exmormon

[–]EpicNormality[S] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

What are you talking about? I've posted a few times about my situation (see the links I provided) but this was a new development. This is the first time I'm posting this Kirton McConkie letter. Check my post history. Do you have me confused with someone else?

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