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The Mormon Church is significantly reducing its use of a controversial shell company after an investigation revealed it had engaged in alleged serious tax evasion in Australia.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, commonly known as the Mormons, set up a tax structure in 2012 that allowed its adherents in Australia to accumulate exemptions worth hundreds of millions of dollars that are not lawfully available to followers of other religions.
Former Mormon Dr Simon Southerton says he hopes the latest development marks the beginning of a regulatory crackdown.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen
The investigation by this masthead in April 2022 found some of its tax activities could be in breach of Australian tax laws. Now the Latter-day Saints church, which has repeatedly said it complies with tax laws, has moved to unwind the tax structure.
In Australia, the church has ensured that donations and tithing – neither of which are tax-deductible – are routed through a charitable trust to gain 100 per cent tax deductibility. Mormons are required to pay 10 per cent of their gross income in an income-deducting practice known as tithing, a significant financial impost on followers.
Australia is unusual among English-speaking countries in that it does not allow tax deductions for tithing or church donations. But it does allow generous deductibility for charitable giving.
The use of the Sydney-based LDS Charities Australia – which has no paid staff – ramped up in recent years. The shell company received $90 million in donations in 2021.
That fell to just $30 million in 2022. It was in April that year that the charity first came under scrutiny for its tax practices.
A church spokesman did not directly answer questions about the fall in donations, but said adherents “continue to generously donate through paying tithes and other offerings”.
“These funds are utilised in accordance with relevant laws and regulations,” the spokesman said.
Former Mormon bishop Dr Simon Southerton, who made the initial complaint about the church’s tax practices to the charities’ regulator, said the shift in Australia was important. It comes several months after the US Securities and Exchange Commission settled a case against the Mormon-run Ensign Peak Advisors and the church for $5 million after it failed, over a 22-year period, to disclose its investments and hid its assets via a network of shell companies.
“One has to hope that this signals the beginning of Australian regulatory authorities taking action in respect of the $400 million rort the church has been engaged in at the expense of the Australian taxpayer,” Southerton said.
In 2019, the Australian Taxation Office made a binding ruling that for a charity to have deductible gift recipient status – which allows tax write-offs for donors – it must have Australia as “the focal point … in a legal or organisational sense”.
Yet LDS Charities Australia has no paid staff and financial reports for the Utah-based Latter-Day Saint Charities – obtained by this masthead last October – confirm it is the legal entity that employs and pays staff for the church’s global charitable operation, including in Australia.
A church spokesman has previously said the Utah-based charity “identified and referred” charitable projects to LDS Charities Australia but maintained local volunteers made the decisions on which projects were funded.
Until 2020, filings with the charities’ regulator stated that LDS Charities Australia had just four local volunteers to run what purported to be one of the biggest charities in the country. In 2022, it claimed it had 15 volunteers.
The tax structure in Australia has meant that since 2015, adherents have been able to draw on $450 million in tax deductions not available to followers of other religions or denominations.
The church has previously reported that it spends up to 70 per cent of its Australian income on charity. Globally, the church spends as little as 0.3 per cent of its revenue on charity.
The Australian Taxation Office said it could not comment on the tax affairs “of any individual or entity due to our obligations of confidentiality and privacy under the law”.
In Senate estimates last November, Tax Office Assistant Commissioner Jeremy Hirschhorn said, in response to a question from Greens senator David Shoebridge, that the ATO was “very aware of those allegations” against the Mormon Church.
ATO Assistant Commissioner Jeremy Hirschhorn.Credit: Michael Quelch
“Due to taxpayer secrecy, I cannot confirm or deny whether an investigation is taking place,” he said. “I’ll also say as a general proposition, not talking about the specific taxpayer, that we do not view tithing as a gift, because a gift must be unconditional. Tithing, therefore, is not eligible for deductibility.”
The exposure of the church’s tax practices in Australia led to a broader joint investigation involving 60 Minutes and the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation that uncovered tax minimisation by the Mormon Church in other countries including Canada and the United States.
This masthead also revealed last October that the international Mormon Church had dramatically overstated its global charitable giving by more than $US1 billion between 2008 and 2020 to make itself appear far more generous than it is.
The extent of Mormons’ charity overstatement was uncovered in 15 years of previously unreleased financial reports.
The church’s Salt Lake Temple in Utah.Credit: iStock
A Washington Post investigation in 2020 revealed the church was secretly running a $US100 billion investment fund, Ensign Peak, that was accumulating vast tax-free wealth by investing in hedge funds, Chevron, Visa, Apple and some of the biggest landholdings in the US.
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