Finances of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

The finances of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) are not a matter of public record. In the absence of official statements, people interested in knowing the LDS Church's financial status and behavior, including both members of the LDS Church and others, have attempted to estimate or guess.^[2] According to the church, their funding comes from the donations of its members and the principal expense is in constructing and maintaining facilities.^[3]

When the church takes in more donations than it pays out in period expenses, it uses the surplus to build a reserve for capital expenditures and for future years when period expenses may exceed donations. The church invests its reserve to maintain the principal and generate a reasonable return and directs its investments into income-producing assets that may help it in its mission, such as farmland- and communication-related companies and the City Creek Center (see below).^[4]

The church has not publicly disclosed its financial statements in the United States since 1959.^[5] The church does disclose its financials in the United Kingdom^[6] and Canada^[7] where it is required to do so by law. In the UK, these financials are audited by the UK office of PricewaterhouseCoopers.

The church maintains an internal audit department that provides its certification at each annual general conference that contributions are collected and spent in accordance with established church policy. In addition, the church engages a public accounting firm (currently Deloitte) to perform annual audits in the United States of its not-for-profit,^[8] for-profit,^[9] and some educational^[10][11] entities.