Calculating our tithing.

[WdSkate]

So today my wife and I had a quick talk about tithing. We still attend Church so we want to pay a portion of our costs. We decided to contribute on a sliding scale. Our deductions added up to something like this.
Temple attendance: 5%
Missionary Program: 2%
Youth Programs: 1%
Gospel Materials: .5%
LDS.org Usage: .5%
Sunday Meetings Building usage (1 of 3 meetings attendance for a 2/3rds deduction of the 1%) .66%
Total of all deductions= 9.66%
Which leads us to pay a tithing of .33% of our income.
In our case we don't care about gross blessings, net blessings will do fine.
Our total tithing comes to $165. Which basically helps keep the lights on and the building warm for the hour per week we use it.

[Corsair]

You are more generous than I am. I consider several previous decades of paying on gross to be sufficiently "paid up in perpetuity". So i find other recipients of my donations.

[Korihor]

I think you must have missed a few deductions, keep looking.

[wtfluff]

So today my wife and I had a quick talk about tithing. We still attend Church so we want to pay a portion of our costs. We decided to contribute on a sliding scale. Our deductions added up to something like this.
Temple attendance: 5%
Missionary Program: 2%
Youth Programs: 1%
Gospel Materials: .5%
LDS.org Usage: .5%
Sunday Meetings Building usage (1 of 3 meetings attendance for a 2/3rds deduction of the 1%) .66%
Total of all deductions= 9.66%
Which leads us to pay a tithing of .33% of our income.
In our case we don't care about gross blessings, net blessings will do fine.
Our total tithing comes to $165. Which basically helps keep the lights on and the building warm for the hour per week we use it.

Brilliant!

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[Zadok]

My name is Zadok_the_Priest, and I approve this message.

[Silver Girl]

You are more generous than I am. I consider several previous decades of paying on gross to be sufficiently "paid up in perpetuity". So i find other recipients of my donations.

I tithe by following the leadership of Bro. Corsair. I paid the full 10% during my entire membership. I think I now have an eternity worth of donations built up to my credit, even after resigning.

I'm assuming God evaluates things based on the heartfelt and misled intent of the giver, rather than the distorted, corrupt and dishonest behaviors of the recipient. It's just like we were always promised by the bishop or SP, whenever we brought forward something confusing or contradictory - it will all be made clear in Eternity. We can all wave in the distance to the decades of church leaders who will likely be most surprised to find themselves in the Telestial Kingdom. There won't be enough daylight, though, for those who end up in Outer Darkness to see our friendly hand gestures.

[dispirited]

I pay the way it was introduced, 10% of my surplus. That varies, but it's been about 150 a quarter. I pay through bill pay which is anomyous to the local unit.

[GoodBoy]

Great minds think alike! I started a very similar thread titled "How Much Does it Cost the Church for You to Attend $$". Then I was reading through and saw this one. So I deleted mine, and am copying and pasting here:
**********************************************************

I try to pay my fair share. So I felt like if I attended church then I ought to consider at least paying enough tithing to cover the costs that the church incurs because of me and my family.

So I looked up the median church operating budget (non-LDS of course since the church's finances are secret), took out salaries and wages because our church doesn't do priestcraft, and I divided by the average number of people in a ward. I also tried several ways to figure out how much a church building costs (about 2.5 million) turned that into an annual payment at about 4% for 30 years, and included utilities and other expenses (I estimate about 54,000/year), then divided that by the number of people attending. I got $200 - $420 per year per person depending on which method you use and other assumptions that you make (I assumed 236 people per ward, 2 wards per building).

Do with that what you will. I'm a bit overly analytical, but I just thought I'd share.

Personally I went back in history and estimated out how much money I paid in tithing, and how much costs I incurred to the church and subtracted the two. I invested the excess (which there was a lot... *pause for a quick cry*) at an annual interest rate of 3%. I lost my faith 4 years ago with a positive balance of about $64,000. The interest on that will grow the balance faster than I could use it up by attending, so I don't owe the church even if I decided to remain fully active the rest of my life (not likely). But I'm all paid up for life.

I also estimated that if I was a full tithe payer until I retired I would have given the church over a million dollars more than I cost it (I'm investing the excess at a very conservative 3%). No wonder Holland is so upset when people leave. It's also no wonder that the church is so freaking rich. It doesn't need 10% in order to survive. It would be fine with a tithing rate of closer to 2-3% with plenty of dough left over to help the poor. Incidentally, 2-3% is closer to a tithe on "increase".

[GoodBoy]

It is also useful to compare what people give at other churches. I found a few statistics that say that the average adult gives $17/week or $880 total per year. I saw another statistic from a church building consultant that the average giving per person per year was about $1,000. This is less than 2% of the average annual U.S. income of $55,000. Yet this buys churches, pays utilities and other operating expenses, leaves money to give to the poor, sends people on "mission trips", and pays the salaries of full-time preachers, which I'm sure takes well over 1/2 of the total. I saw some other statistics that showed that the building/admin/utilities averages about 30% of an average protestant church's total budget. 30% of $1000/person/year is $300/person/year, which validates my original estimates.

It also shows that 2% tithing is all the church needs. It is honestly so rich it probably doesn't know what to do with all of that money except build more temples, fancy shopping malls, and buy more land in Florida. It is also no wonder they are not interested in sharing their financial statements. They would be frankly embarrassing. The church doesn't need your money. Give you money to God, not the church in the way that he said to, "inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren ye have done it unto me."

[John G.]

I've developed a number of legitimate "tithing shelters" to shelter my income from tithing. For example, for income going into 401k, Roth, and other retirement accounts I don't pay tithing on it until I withdraw the money in retirement. (I will pay this tithing in retirement, assuming, of course, that I haven't completely apostatized by then!). I also have a specific, and more expansive, definition of business expenses. The key here is that I consider myself a small business so I can exclude the expenses used to generate my "revenue" (the salary from my job) from my bottom line "profit" which I pay tithing on.

I have a bunch of other techniques, but really can't list them here. But my proven methods are so effective that I have received the full blessings from God for the very, very, reasonable tithing payment that I've made.

I've also been able to pass the tithing audit the Church conducts during tithing settlement and TR interviews. When the Bishop or Stake leadership asks if I'm a full tithe payer I can confidently say, YES!**

** This is more what I would do if I was still active. I fortunately went inactive soon after my mission, but I was a sucker and paid tithing on the barely-above-minimum-wage, back-breaking, high school job I had growing up! (You know what they say about suckers!)

[moksha]

Welcome to the board WdSkate.

[Emower]

I have decided to pay my surplus income (which is not much) all into the fast offering fund until I can figure out where else I would like to donate. I have been on the receiving end of fast offerings before and was very grateful for it at the time. I trust the bishop of my unit to use it wisely, but I get that that is not an attractive option for others.

[Shawn]

I decided I've already paid enough tithing to cover me for the rest of my life.

[Red Ryder]

I pay on the value of the intangible religious benefits received.

My extended family benefits from this because it increases our ability to travel and see them. They have such cute kids and are really fun to hang out with!

[GoodBoy]

A very reasonable way to define "surplus", if you want to do things that way, might be the same way that the federal government defines it... taxable income. Politicians have been fighting over this stuff for hundreds of years to try to come to something that is fair. You deduct all kinds of things from your total income depending on how many people you are supporting, other taxes you pay, positive things you are doing with your money, etc., and then pay tithing on the remaining amount the same way you pay taxes on this remaining amount (taxable income on the bottom of the first page of your 1040 form). If you aren't paying any taxes, you shouldn't be paying any tithing.

This is how we try to do it. I made sure I don't "owe" the church anything for using their facilities, but I still try to pay 10% of my "increase" to help others. For me, this includes helping friends and family members through tight spots, driving the scouts to campouts, then buying everyone KFC on the way home, contributions to the UGN fund at work, etc. You might also count service hours (as they did in the early days of the church) as a donation. The point for me was to try to be unselfish and continue to contribute, and be able to tell the bishop I'm a full tithe payer with a clean conscience.

[Nowyoutellme]

We give to the church once or twice a year through a CGF. We request the donation go to the church humanitarian fund in SLC and mark the donation to be given anonymously. I tell the Bishop when they he tries to get us in for shakedown settlement that we are full and will not be coming in to meet. What he does with the information I couldn't care less.

We try to still give generously to other truly worthy causes that we as a family discuss and chose. It is great to finally be able to support organizations that we believe in and can see the direct benefit they are to those they serve. I actually feel like the Savior is more pleased with us giving to the "least of these", instead of a nonprofit real estate investment trust.

[Silver Girl]

This is the only mainstream Christian church that interrogates people annually about what they 'donate' and punishes members who don't cough up the required fee for the ticket to get into temples. Of course, that's absolutely a Godly thing to do, and we all know how fulfilling, enriching and uplifting those Masonic ceremonies are - especially with the Devil thrown in to underscore the absurdity (er, the spirituality) of it all.

An idea: Let's all form a church. We will get rich. And we can claim we did it righteously.

[wtfluff]

I pay on the value of the intangible religious benefits received.

Because this ^ needs to be repeated.