A former investment manager for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has filed a whistleblower complaint to the US Internal Revenue Service (IRS) which alleges that church officials been stockpiling funds intended for charity.
Over more than 20 years, the Church of Latter-day Saints has accrued approximately $100 billion in investments, tithes and other donations for its charity war chest, according to a whistleblower complaint filed to the IRS on November 21 and recently obtained by the Washington Post.
Though the religious group is allowed to hold such funds and not required to pay income tax on its holdings – per US federal law pertaining to nonprofit organizations – David A. Nielsen, the 41-year-old whistleblower and former senior portfolio manager for the Church of Latter-day Saints, claimed the church is not worthy of its tax-exempt status.
The ex-employee of Ensign Peak Advisors, the church's investment division, noted in the complaint that the church rakes in approximately $7 billion a year, and though $6 billion of that is used to cover annual operation costs, the remaining amount is handed off to Ensign. Internal accounting documents referenced in Nielsen's complaint noted that the Ensign portfolio has grown from $12 billion in 1997 to around $100 billion today, and the complaint alleges that none of those funds have been used to assist in educational, religious or charitable activities within those…
