A former investment manager for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints told “60 Minutes” on Sunday he joined the faith’s investment arm, Ensign Peak Advisors, inspired that he might help advance the global denomination’s charitable outreach around the world.
David A. Nielsen, the portfolio supervisor turned IRS whistleblower, said the Utah-based faith instead illegally relied on its tax-exempt status to stockpile upward of $100 billion in investments built from members’ tithing “and the funds were never used” for those good works.
“It was really a clandestine hedge fund,” Nielsen told the newsmagazine show’s correspondent Sharyn Alfonsi in his first public interview on the topic. “Once the money went in, it didn’t go out.”
“I thought we were going to change the world,” said the Salt Lake City resident, who added that he left a lucrative job on Wall Street to join Ensign Peak in 2009, but resigned 10 years later after becoming disillusioned. “We just grew the bank account.”
David Nielsen is blowing the whistle on the Mormon church’s investment firm, Ensign Peak Advisors.
— 60 Minutes (@60Minutes) May 14, 2023
“I thought I was going to work for a charity… The funds were never used for that,” said the former manager, who is accusing the church of stockpiling funds. pic.twitter.com/hspaqf46Mu
Sunday’s news segment, titled “The Church’s Firm,” marked the first public comments by Nielsen since his late 2019 complaint to tax authorities, accusing the church’s investment firm of dodging billions in taxes by using false records “to masquerade as a charity” and misleading the faith’s 17 million members.
While not using funds for church activities, Nielsen has said, its managers spent nearly $2 billion from Ensign Peak for commercial purposes, namely, City Creek Center, the luxury mall the faith built near its headquarters campus in the heart of downtown Salt Lake City, and Beneficial Life, a church-owned insurance firm.
“I’m not an expert on charities,” Nielsen told Alfonsi, “but I’ve been around the block enough to know that charitable organizations can’t bail out for-profit businesses and maintain their charitable status.”
Sunday’s 13-minute story did not add substantial new detail to what Nielsen has shared with tax officials, the Department of Justice, the U.S. Senate Finance Committee and the Securities and Exchange Commission. He said he decided to come forward on national television after extending “all the professional courtesy to officials at the IRS and the SEC.
“It’s time,” he said. “This is just too important to fall through the cracks.”
Phil Hackney, a former IRS official also interviewed in the segment, later called the odds that Nielsen’s complaints would be fully investigated “slim.”
“The political risk is so great that it comes with real danger,” Hackney said. “At the same time, there’s a real risk to the rule of law if the IRS doesn’t come in and enforce those rules.”
“The fundamental claim to me is that Ensign Peak brings money in and it’s the Hotel California. It never comes out,” said Phil Hackney, who worked for the IRS.
— 60 Minutes (@60Minutes) May 14, 2023
He said the claims about the Mormon church’s investment fund are complex and in a gray area. https://t.co/L0HjIkSZq9 pic.twitter.com/HGj5BL1K8J
Nielsen’s interview did add a dimension of personal betrayal to his nearly 4-year-old narrative of claims.
When he confronted his superiors for an explanation of how Ensign Peak’s vast reserve funds — which he pegged at the time at $100 billion, exceeding Harvard University’s endowment or the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, “60 Minutes” noted — might one day be used, Nielsen said, “the answer was always the Second Coming.”
“And it’s a bit tongue in cheek,” he said, “but deep down I think a lot of the employees really did believe that.”
W. Christopher Waddell, first counselor in the church’s Presiding Bishopric, the ecclesiastical overseers of its far-reaching financial, real estate, investment and charitable operations, countered that Nielsen did not have a full picture of Ensign Peak’s work.
“We believe that someday Jesus Christ will return. But that’s not why we have those resources,” Wardell said. The funds, he added, were for the church’s continuing operation “and for the future.”
“Just incorrect,” said Bishop Christopher Waddell about a whistleblower’s complaint about the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints’ investment fund. He says the fund is “for the continuing operation and for the future” of the church. https://t.co/vgf9heJ1Kk pic.twitter.com/NEGB6GKa5p
— 60 Minutes (@60Minutes) May 14, 2023
Wardell declined to address claims the “rainy day” fund has reached as much as $150 billion. He also defended the church’s stance on not disclosing information on its finances. In response to a question that a lack of transparency can breed mistrust, he declared, “We don’t feel it’s being secret. We feel it’s being confidential,” though he added that the difference between the two was a matter of “point of view.”
“It’s confidential in order to maintain the focus on what our purpose is, rather than the church has X amount,” Wardell said. If the church assets were disclosed, he said, “then everyone will be telling us what they want us to do with the money.”
from The Salt Lake Tribune https://ift.tt/h3rAWoO
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