The Practice of Tithing

The church has not published an accounting of the receipt or expenditure of tithing funds since the 60s when President Henry D. Moyle of the 1[st] presidency successfully lobbied President David O. McKay to cease the practice of providing an accounting of funds to the membership at each annual conference.¹ However, private estimates of the amount donated are about $7 billion per year.² Where does this money go?

Although a complete accounting is impossible to reconstruct, there are sufficient morsels of information that have been released that allow inference.

The largest recipient of tithing, according to Gordon B. Hinckley, is the operation of church universities: “[BYU] is the single most expensive entity funded by the tithes of the Church.”³ The church universities (BYU Provo, BYU Hawaii, BYU Idaho, LDS Business School, and BYU Salt Lake Campus) are a very expensive enterprise. Using actual BYU tuition rates and comparative private tuition figures published by BYU, as well as current enrollment numbers, we can estimate the tithing cost of the church universities at $1.1 billion. In addition to the church universities, the Church Educational System retains over 1,000 institute directors (see full list at institute.lds.org). Each director receives a significant salary in addition to perks such as a company car, a cost of living allowance, and a lifetime retirement at 30 years of service. The annual cost of the institute directors easily exceeds $10 million before counting the cost of those on retirement. Additionally, the church employs up to 24,000 lesser-paid full-time seminary teachers, which would cost a bare minimum of $600 million per year (assuming $24,000 per year salaries and conservative employer tax contributions). Thus, the CES annual budget is at least $1.5 billion per year, or 21% of tithing, and could be higher than $2 billion per year, or 29% of tithing.

After the CES system, the next highest tithing expense is most likely the salaries, benefits, and office space costs of full-time employees of the church (excluding CES). The church has not publicly released the number of workers it employs globally. However, a consideration of the number of entities and the work they do can assist in getting an idea of the order of magnitude of church employment. We typically think of the ecclesiastical employees who receive a salary for their work, such as the First Presidency, the Quorum of the 12, and the General Authorities. Each of these men also have secretaries. Also, there are over 400 mission presidents who are salaried and 25 area office staffs that consist of a collection of full-time employees to handle welfare, finance, facilities, etc. There are also facilities management personnel for the church buildings worldwide. Temple recorders are paid positions. There are also those who make garments, print scriptures and manuals, etc. There are a large number of professionals that provide support functions for church administration: lawyers, accountants, editors, programmers, electricians, janitors, and the like. Finally, there are the emeritus 70s, who receive pay and benefits for life.

Beyond the ecclesiastical employees of the church, the church wholly owns and operates an array of for-profit businesses. The employees of these operations are church employees. These companies include Deseret Management Corporation, Beneficial Financial Group, Bonneville International, Bonneville Communications, Bonneville Interactive Services, Bonneville Satellite, 35 different radio stations, KSL Television Station, Deseret Book, Excel Entertainment, Deseret Morning News, Hawaii Reserves, Polynesian Cultural Center, La'ie Shopping Center, La'ie Water Company, La'ie Treatment Works, Temple Square Hospitality and Temple Square restaurants, Zions Securities Corporation, Ensign Peak Advisors, Farm Management Corporation, Deseret Land and Livestock, Sun Ranch, Deseret Ranches of Florida, Deseret Farms of California, West Hills Orchards, Cactus Lane Ranch, Deseret Trust Company, LDS Family Services, Property Reserves Inc., and Deseret Mutual Benefit Administrators (DMBA).

Again, quantifying the amount of money spent on these employees is not possible. However, to get an idea, we can consider the legally mandated financial information published by the LDS church in the UK. In 2012, the church in the UK had 188,029 members and spent 12,350,000 pounds on staff. This number did not include “missionary work,” the category which would tally the cost of mission president salaries and expense accounts, as well as associated employees at the area office, totaling about 7 million pounds. However, just using the exclusionary 12.3 million pounds number, that equates to sixty five pounds per member, or about $103 per member. This figure is the cost for local administration and does not include the army of lawyers, accountants, IT professionals, and General Authorities who are on the headquarters payroll. It likewise does not include any of the for-profit businesses, many of which are operated in the USA. However, it provides a very conservative lower bound. Extrapolating to the 15 million members reported by the church worldwide, we can estimate that LDS non-business salaries and benefits worldwide cost at least $1.5 billion per year, or approximately 21% of tithing.

Temples and chapels are another large item of expenditure for the church. The church publicizes the sparing of no expense in the construction of its temples. In the October 2012 General Conference, Elder Scott D. Whiting recounted how, during the renovation of the Laie Hawaii Temple, he watched a delegation of Church leaders indicate that certain parts of the construction would have to be redone. These included a large custom made stained glass window where a two-inch square was one eighth of an inch crooked and how several walls felt gritty to the touch. Elder Whiting later realized that the walls had always been intended to be wallpapered, and the small, crooked glass square was planned to sit behind a large potted plant. This level of exactness costs a lot of money to achieve. This is besides the materials themselves, which are lauded as being top of the line. On an open house tour of the Draper Utah temple, the tour guide showed me the astounding number of costly materials used to construct the 57,000 sq. ft. building. The abundant granite facing, counters and floor molding come from China. The wooden panels, doors, and molding come from Africa. The limestone floors are from France. There are over 35,000 hand-cut pieces of glass in the building. The church has not disclosed the cost of the Draper temple, though unofficial estimates are all over $100 million. The only temple whose cost has been partially disclosed is the Washington, D.C. temple, which leaders said would cost an estimated $15 million in the late 1960s, or about $88 million today. The D.C. temple is much larger than the Draper temple, but the materials used inside and out are significantly less costly than those in recent temples. The Preston England temple complex cost around $165 million in 1998, according to a Stake President there. The smaller temples are estimated to cost much less, around $16-20 million. Each temple has maintenance costs for the grounds, utilities, etc. that are considerable. Since 1998, the church has built or is building a total of 66 temples. Assuming the non-local contribution of each temple is $16 million (a conservative estimate), that equates to over a billion dollars, or around $62 million per year, excluding the cost of renovations or maintenance of existing temples. In total, the church could easily spend a billion dollars per year in temple operations and construction. This is at least 14% of annual tithing.

The church also builds about one chapel per day. According to the Zwick Construction (a firm that has built many temples and chapels for the church) website, a standard, US chapel costs 2-3 million dollars (excluding land cost and landscaping).Like temples, chapels built in the first world are built of considerably more expensive materials than in the developing world. If we assume that international chapels cost half what US chapels do (a very conservative factor), and that 1 in 10 new chapels are stake centers (also a conservative estimate), the church spends at least $400 million on new chapels per year. But what about the land cost? Although in some areas, like the UK, land costs exceed construction costs, we can conservatively estimate the cost of the land occupied by new chapels at 50% of the construction cost, or $200 million per year.⁴ It is harder to estimate utilities and renovation costs. However, the church is required by law to release financials for operations in the UK. From this information, we can gather that chapel renovations usually cost half what a new chapel would cost.⁵ We assume $200 million annually for these renovations, and for the sake of being conservative, ignore the costs of utilities and maintenance. This brings the total chapel cost estimation at $800 million per year. This is about 11% of tithing.

It is commonly understood in the church that one of the uses for tithing is to care for the poor. However, that is a false understanding. The LDS.org topics essay of “Tithing” does not list care for the poor as one of its uses:

“Tithing funds are always used for the Lord’s purposes—to build and maintain temples and meetinghouses, to sustain missionary work, to educate Church members, and to carry on the work of the Lord throughout the world.”

President Monson recently explained that money spent on the poor in the church comes completely from fast offerings.⁶ The portion of tithing spent on the poor comes in the form of the humanitarian aid fund. In 2011, the church disclosed exactly how much money was spent in the preceding 26 years on humanitarian aid: $1.4 billion.⁷ This amounts to $53.8 million per year, or 0.76% of tithing per year.

In conclusion, approximately 29% of tithing goes to CES, 21% in ecclesiastic and administrative salaries, 14% to temple construction and operation, 11% to chapel construction and maintenance, 0.76% to humanitarian aid.⁸