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I understand and respect different experiences causing different views. Quote:someone here said that when the partnership isn’t working, when there is no support after great sacrifices and commitment have been shown, there may well be modifications to the partnership…
Yeah, I remember that statement – and who said it.
😆 Well, I think the great Prophet Robert Kirby says it pretty well. I hope it’s okay to post excerpts from this article here. Kirby: Beware: Romney’s flat tax no different than Mormon tithing
http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/lifestyle/52799437-80/tax-flat-tithing-percent.html.csp ” class=”bbcode_url”> http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/lifestyle/52799437-80/tax-flat-tithing-percent.html.csp Taxes will play a big part in who gets to be our next president. The candidates all claim to have a tax plan for America that is fair, simpler and will spare America from being foreclosed on by the Chinese.
The tax plans vary (sometimes wildly) but all come down to the same thing: armed robbery. If you don’t think so, try not giving your money to the government next April and see what happens…
…The one plan we don’t want is any sort of flat tax proposed by Mitt Romney. He’s a Mormon. Because I’m one, too, I know how a Mormon flat tax works. It’s 10 percent of everything you earn, otherwise known as tithing.
In most other churches, tithing is paid according to the wants/needs of those doing the offering. It can range anywhere from $1 to $1 million.
Not for Mormons. For us it’s a flat 10 percent right off the top. There are no deductions, brackets, write-offs or loopholes in “flat tithing.” Rich, middle class, or poverty-stricken, everybody pays that same percentage.
It sounds really fair, but it’s not.T en percent to a billionaire is less of a tax than 10 percent is to a single mom with six kids.But flat tithing doesn’t stop there for Mormons, which is what makes Mitt’s plan potentially so dangerous. He may say flat tax, but that’s just the start.
In addition to flat tithing, there’s also welfare or fast offerings. Once a month, deacons visit the homes in an LDS ward collecting money for the needy.
You can just imagine how a Mormon president might factor that into the equation. Once a month, a couple of guys from the IRS ring your doorbell and give you the “opportunity” to share even more of your money with the poor.
Then there’s the annual drive by the Boy Scouts of America. Once a year, Scouts in my ward come by looking for additional funding for a program called “Friends of Scouting.”
If Mitt gets elected, the parallel program will be “Friends of NATO.” Once a year, soldiers will drop by your house and peel off some more of your paycheck.
It keeps going this way until you realize that you’re committed to a faith where everything you own is technically for the building up of Zion. Or in this case, the government.
It’s true that unlike taxes, tithing is supposed to be voluntary. That sounds nice, but I fail to see how voluntary something can be if you go to hell for not doing it.Flat tax, flat tithing. They both mean the same thing: flat wallet.
Cadence wrote:DevilsAdvocate wrote:
If greed was really their primary motivation I don’t think they would be building all these new temples so close to each other when they could just as easily ask people to drive 20 minutes instead and it looks to me like what is really going on is that they are desperately trying to bring their vision of salvation to as many people as possible.Tithing is exactly why they build temples.
It is proven the closer members are to temple the more likely they are to pay tithing.The thing is I do not think the leaders even connect the dots. Like you say they believe they are bringing salvation. But I can promise you if there were not going to be funds to support the temple it would not be built.My guess is that they have been building more temples since the mid 1990s mostly because they already have the funds to do it and hope it will promote the overall cause of Mormonism, not because they expect it to directly generate a proportional amount of increased tithing revenue. For example, I really doubt that the relatively small number of Church members in Italy pay nearly enough tithing to really justify a temple in Rome. Based on some estimates I have read, over 90% of all tithing comes from Church members in the US so if they mostly just want to milk a cash cow then I don’t see the point of all this effort and investment in trying to permanently establish the Church overseas in so many different remote and unprofitable locations.
Exactly, DA. That’s why the most cynical view just doesn’t resonate with me. I understand the concerns, and I even agree with many of them, but I disagree totally about the motivation. I think the leadership believes in tithing and its benefits – and I think it isn’t more complex than that, at the most basic level, all other considerations aside.
cwald, I don’t agree always with Kirby, but he’s our Mormon Dave Barry. His stuff usually is hilarious.
SilentDawning wrote:Regarding the amount to be given being completely outrageous — I guess that depends on your perspective….I know some people really struggle to save 10% of their income, so for those people, paying tithing would wipe out their savings. People, on the other hand, who have dual incomes and save one in its entirety would not find it as much of a sacrifice…In a way, expecting everyone to pay 10% across the board doesn’t really invoke the spirit of the widow’s mite — you might find there are some whose income is so low that only 5% would be more of a sacrifice than 20% for other people.And in that sense the 5% payer may be making the greater sacrifice… I admit that description was purely my own opinion about it, basically 10% of gross or net income sounds outrageous to me even though we’re not living paycheck to paycheck and could technically pay it without having to sell our house or suffer too much as a direct result. My main point is that the Church’s current interpretation of tithing just doesn’t add up in the worst cases and the result is that many members and investigators will inevitably feel like they simply cannot afford to pay tithing. The question of whether they could theoretically afford it by downgrading their lifestyle, level of comfort, and convenience is somewhat irrelevant because the Church is never going to successfully persuade many of them to become consistent “full” tithe-payers and putting so much empasis on this often becomes another strike against the Church in their mind.
When Lorenzo Snow started aggressively demanding tithing as an essential requirement of Church members in 1899 people weren’t paying income tax and monthly cable TV, internet, and cell phone bills among other things so giving the Church 1 out of 10 chickens was absolutely not the same thing as handing over 10% of your gross income nowadays because now this amount has grown much higher in proportion to what people will generally be left with after they are done paying for all their typical expenses. I’m not saying it was necessarily easier to pay tithing back in 1899 when the poorest people where probably more likely to not even have enough money for food but I definitely think the current tithing interpretation has outlived its overall usefulness for the Church and is already doing much more harm than good for most members on average.
The Church can continue to insist that the absolute truth is something like 2+2=5 because divine intervention will supposedly make up the difference but what happens when members and investigators suspect these promises will never be fulfilled? The naive attitude most Church leaders have about tithing reminds me of the Martin handcart disaster when members unwisely left for Utah way too late in the year and ended up getting caught in terrible winter weather in Wyoming apparently because of unfounded faith, hope, and assurances that everything would work out alright. Trying harder will not necessarily help much if there are fundamental flaws in the basic plan you are attempting to carry out.
After reading the posts, I’d like to put my two cents if I can. In my TBM days I paid tithing with the belief that it was “building up the kingdom of God” on earth. The church would spend it in any way they saw fit to meet that broad goal.
I think the modern church today dances a difficult dance with tithing in a number of ways.
1. All tithing is centrally received in SLC and then doled out. I can understand the need to do this. Giving money out to local leadership to do as they see fit on some kind of percentage basis could easily get out of control. Can you imagine money coming in to a developing country branch? There could be all kind of corruption and mismanagement. I think the church has enough mismanagement with the current model.
2. On the other hand, the church has no checks & balances. The leadership decides where money goes for certain projects (new temples here, a new ward house there, renovation project in downtown SLC or even a game reserve with couple missionaries). The general membership has no say whatsoever as to how the money is spent. Maybe local leaders funnel requests up through area leaders and eventually get petitions to SLC, I don’t know. It seems to me that if I were a leader in a South American city in Bolivia, I would be saying to SLC is that the local member needs are, capital to start businesses, schools and medical clinics.
What comes first? The spiritual side of tithing or the temporal side? Didn’t Christ first feed the 5,000 before he preached to them? It seems odd that we have a beautiful temple somewhere in some poor city that has beautiful interiors and parking and the local people are working three jobs just to stay alive.
The church has gotten out of the non profitable ventures (schools & medical) to instead, invest in revenue producing ventures (expensive malls & condos).
I don’t mind the church staying out of debt and making smart financial decisions like a good business. As a church though, is the goal to have huge cash reserves or to help spiritual & temporal needs? It seems like the message from the church is…members tend to the spiritual side, in other words pay your tithing and don’t question, the church will tend to all the temporal decisions in a centrally planned way.
3. There is not much upside for the church going public with its finances (for the church anyway). If the church goes public, they leave themselves open to a lot of criticism from its enemies. Members see how much money is actually coming in & where it is going and maybe stop paying tithing. I have thought about this for a long time. For example, how much money actually goes to humanitarian aid? How much do GA get for a spending allowance?
If you are a believing member maybe it doesn’t matter. You might even give 20% if asked, who knows. To me, a person that is questioning all, the church going public would probably give me a reason to stop paying not keep on paying.
ElCid wrote:The church has gotten out of the non profitable ventures (schools & medical) to instead, invest in revenue producing ventures (expensive malls & condos).
To add a fleshing perspective to this, I try to view the churches non-ecclesiastical financial dealings through various general categories:
A: The church provides schools or medical because the non-church sources of school or medical are not very good. As non-church sources improve this is scaled back.
B: The church can be the spender of last resort in a region and can be considered to be doing its duty as a responsible community member to beautify and maintain certain neighborhoods to the benefit of the whole community (expensive malls & condos).
C: The church can be making investments in part to be in a position to tell its own narrative in the future (I think church ownership in communications companies has this at least partly in mind).
The church can be simply be making an investment based upon projected ROI.Tis is not an exhaustive list of considerations. Also there can be considerable overlap between categories in any specific scenario and I would imagine the greater number of “bases” a particular investment may cover, the more of a “no brainer” it would be to decision makers.
I actually did a little exericse a while ago. Because the Church has been so successful financially, I boiled down a few principles of their success and wrote them in my journal. Then, I tried to apply these same principles in my family — with the family being the Church, and everyone in the family being members — just as an exercise to see what ideas it would generate. Here are the principles, based on Mormon America:
Principles
1. Most investment is aimed at increasing the growth, stasbility and independence (and maybe even wealth) of the Church.
2. Where possible, labor for mundane tasks is given for free.
3. Donations outside of the organization are typically smaller than the donations made by other organizations to outside organizations.
4. Wealth numbers and policies are generally not shared, not even within the Church.
5. Investments in assets and programs which benefit members are generally co-missioned, meaning, they benefit the Church financially, as well as the individual. Fast offerings are paid to help people get off Church welfare. Investments in missionary training centers are there to fuel population growth. Investments in buildings and temples may well be linked to their impact on revenues.
6. Assets are professionally managed.
7. If a big investment is planned, members are expected to give above and beyond their regular donations.
8. One of the Church’s aims is to grow the Church’s assets and wealth. Spiritual principles serve that end.
9. The Church is never in debt to the point it cannot stand independent.
10. The interests of the organization are at least, if not more important as the interests of individual members.
11. Matters of money and policy are strictly enforced with external rewards and punishments.
So, run those policies through your family, substituting Family with Church…it led me to some interesting thoughts and conclusions about how to run my family for financial success. A couple of the implications were offensive to me, though.
SilentDawning wrote:8. One of the Church’s aims is to grow the Church’s assets and wealth. Spiritual principles serve that end.
What does this mean? Spiritual Principles serve the end of growing the Church’s assets and wealth?I do not understand.
SilentDawning wrote:So, run those policies through your family, substituting Family with Church…it led me to some interesting thoughts and conclusions about how to run my family for financial success.
Now if I could just convince my friends to give me 10% of their ‘increase’, I’m pretty sure I could make it work.
wayfarer wrote:SilentDawning wrote:8. One of the Church’s aims is to grow the Church’s assets and wealth. Spiritual principles serve that end.
What does this mean? Spiritual Principles serve the end of growing the Church’s assets and wealth?I do not understand.
I think it’s viewed similarly to the way corporations view charitable efforts. They target their social conscience efforts at groups that help the organization’s mission in the long run….similarily a lot of the spiritual principles taught are aimed at things that benefit the Church. Things like obedience to Church leaders, that free service in the Church as a priesthood holder is part of the path that leads to heaven, that tithing brings blessings in the next life, while giving the Church a huge advantage financially at the same time. Etcetera. I said “one of the Church’s aims”. I don’t see it necessarily as focused only on that, but if you think about it, many of the principles and behaviors expected from us a priesthood leaders involve serving the Church financial and time-donation ways, not necessarily people outside our organization — those outside efforts are usually optional, with storehouse assignments, temple service, etcetera, being expected.
The way I worded it sounds more apostate than I am, unfortunately.
Quote:It sounds really fair, but it’s not. Ten percent to a billionaire is less of a tax than 10 percent is to a single mom with six kids.
I disagree. It’s still proportionate. In this country we have plenty of cases of rich people paying the exact amount of tax as poor people, because they have accountants, offshore bankers etc. Now that’s more unfair.
SamBee wrote:Quote:It sounds really fair, but it’s not. Ten percent to a billionaire is less of a tax than 10 percent is to a single mom with six kids.
I disagree. It’s still proportionate. In this country we have plenty of cases of rich people paying the exact amount of tax as poor people, because they have accountants, offshore bankers etc. Now that’s more unfair.
Well, I disagree with you disagree
🙂 ….Flat tax and flat tithing is a horrible and unjust system, IMO. It makes absolutely no sense to me, and the whole proportionate thing really sticks it to the poor. Sure, the rich will pay a lot more in tithing overall, but they aren’t sacrificing the basics of life to do so, like the single mom with six kids making 35,000 a year will have to do.
cwald wrote:Flat tax and flat tithing is a horrible and unjust system, IMO. It makes absolutely no sense to me, and the whole proportionate thing really sticks it to the poor. Sure, the rich will pay a lot more in tithing overall, but they aren’t sacrificing the basics of life to do so, like the single mom with six kids making 35,000 a year will have to do.
Last night as we went over our budget, I was struck that my family of 4 had gone through almost 5k in groceries. It made me think of how quickly the money goes and how with a lower income that same food bill would take up a disproportionate percentage. Yet such is life, surely you are not proposing that the wealthy pay tithing until they need to sacrifice basics as well.
There is no equal system…except for…maybe…
consecration(to be read with dramatic effect) 😈 As much as I agree with you in theory, cwald – and as much as I am open to some kind of exemption for the poor (although that would be horrible to try to establish and enforce, from a practical standpoint – since those just outside the line would have an incredibly good argument and I think it would cause HUGE dissension and hard feelings from more people than those who struggle now) . . . (Iow, I don’t want a tithing version of the current tax code.) There just isn’t any way short of a Law of Consecration approach to implement a tax/tithing system that will make the rich sacrifice like the poor do. Even having a 50% tax/tithing level for the highly rich and a 0% level for the poor isn’t going to alter in any significant way the disparity you describe. It still will be easy for the rich and hard for the poor.
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