LDS Church owns over $100M in Idaho property, data shows, much of it tax-exempt
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints owns nearly 60,000 acres of land in Idaho worth at least $128.4 million, according to a new set of data.
Information on the church’s properties was published earlier this month by Truth & Transparency, a group that describes itself as “a nonprofit newsroom dedicated to religious accountability through impact journalism.” The organization combed through real estate data and concluded that, as of July 2020, the church owned nearly 16,000 parcels in the U.S. valued at roughly $15.7 billion.
The investigation revealed the church as one of the largest private landowners in the country, with Idaho one of the states where it owns the most property — nearly half of which is tax-exempt.
Truth & Transparency reporters said the data may not be a complete picture of the church’s land ownership — and indeed, several Idaho properties appear to be missing — but it’s the most comprehensive look to date at the LDS real estate portfolio.
The disclosure has reinvigorated longtime speculation over the extent of the church’s wealth and its opaque finances.
Church’s tax-exempt properties worth millions
The vast majority of the LDS Church’s property — about 28% of its parcels and nearly 40% of its real estate wealth — is in Utah, where it is headquartered.
The church’s $128.4 million assessed property value in Idaho didn’t crack the top 10 states where the church has the most real estate wealth. Among its 1,050 Idaho properties included in the data are churches, temples, agricultural and industrial properties, and more — nearly half of them tax-exempt.
The Statesman reached out to the church to confirm the number of properties it owns. A spokesperson for the church did not respond to the requests for comment. Spokesperson Doug Andersen told The Salt Lake Tribune that “real estate holdings are used to fulfill the religious mission” of the faith.
At least 463 of the LDS Idaho properties have tax-exempt status. According to the data available, the value of those properties is nearly $45 million. A handful of other properties are categorized as “religious” and presumably tax-exempt. The value of those is an additional $13 million.
In Idaho, state tax code exempts religious institutions from paying taxes on any property used for “religious, educational, or recreational” purposes. In the past, the church has defended its financial assets and said it follows all laws regarding property tax.
Some critics have argued that the church is using its tax-exempt status to build real estate wealth while taxpayers pick up the slack. Chad Pomeroy, a former BYU student and law professor at St. Mary’s University in San Antonio, told The Salt Lake Tribune that the public can only speculate about the actual extent of the LDS Church’s wealth.
“What’s jarring to me is that you have a tax-exempt entity that’s allowed to aggregate this amount of assets without telling anybody what they’ve got,” Pomeroy said.
More than half of the Idaho properties listed did not include assessed values, meaning the total value is likely far higher than the $128.4 million in the data set. The most expensive property on the list, a Deseret Industries store at 1370 Caldwell Boulevard in Nampa, was assessed at $5.1 million.
The values of the church’s most grandiose buildings — its six temples — were not included. Idaho county assessors’ offices have listed the temples with no value, as they do for all tax-exempt properties.
The church also has roughly $30 million worth of land that is taxed under various farming and agriculture codes, as well as nearly $20 million taxed as vacant or waste land.
Samuel Brunson, a law professor at Loyola University Chicago and a practicing LDS member, told the Statesman that he thinks the church may be holding on to land in Idaho in anticipation of needing more church buildings as the state’s population booms. It could also be using agricultural parcels for farming, as it’s known to do in states like Florida and Nebraska, where it holds more land than it does in Idaho.
Finally, Brunson said, he suspects many of the properties that aren’t places of worship were likely donated by church members. The church’s website said real estate is “a very common gift,” and Brunson said it helps donors avoid capital gains taxes and claim tax writeoffs.
Like Pomeroy, Brunson said he thinks churches’ finances should be more transparent, if only to alter the public perception of secrecy. Churches, unlike other tax-exempt entities, are not required to file financial disclosures with the Internal Revenue Service.
“Frankly, I think it would be beneficial … to the Mormon church because suddenly you wouldn’t have these ‘gotcha’ things dropping,” Brunson said. “I think the release of the real property owned by the church is a lot less scandalous than the people who released it seemed to think.”
Brunson said he thinks many people simply weren’t aware of the breadth of the church’s property holdings, which appears to be rivaled only by the Catholic Church.
LDS Church’s properties span the state
While Idaho’s properties didn’t top the list of states where the church has the most real estate wealth, it was third only to California and Utah in number of parcels and No. 8 in total acreage. Data showed the church owns more than 58,000 acres — or roughly 90 square miles — of Idaho land. That’s about 5 square miles larger than the total area of Boise.
Many of the church’s properties are in East Idaho and the south-central part of the state, where LDS membership is especially prevalent. Data shows 130 parcels are in Bonneville County, home to Idaho Falls. There the church owns more than 9,700 acres of land, including a 7-acre parcel where the state’s first LDS temple was built in 1939.
The church owns more land in Cassia County than anywhere else in Idaho. Nearly all of the 12,500 acres it owns there are in Burley, where the church plans to build its next temple. In 11 of Idaho’s 44 counties, the LDS Church owns more than 1,000 acres, or 1.5 square miles, of land.
Though a 2021 study found Madison County has the second-highest concentration of LDS Church members in the U.S. — it is home to Brigham Young University-Idaho — the church owns only 545 acres of land there, comparable to the amount of land it has in Ada County. Madison is one of Idaho’s smallest counties, and much of it is rural.
In Ada County, the church owns nearly 500 acres of land scattered across 87 parcels. About 150 acres are in Boise. The church’s most extensive Treasure Valley holdings are in Caldwell, where it owns about 1,000 acres.
Nearly half of the 1,050 properties in the data set are listed as “public or semi-public” assets. Many of those appear to be church meetinghouses and seminary buildings. The church also owns 226 vacant land parcels, 186 agricultural parcels and several commercial, industrial and retail properties.
What we don’t know
The Statesman uncovered several discrepancies between the data and Idaho county assessors’ information that suggest the church owns even more property than was disclosed.
Truth & Transparency’s article on the data includes the caveat that it searched for a single common property owner address to uncover the thousands of church-owned parcels. Some properties — even those that appear to be associated with that address, such as a temple in Chicago — did not appear in the data. In addition, properties zoned as single-family residences are not included, and the data reflects land held in July 2020.
Data reported only a single property in Bear Lake County, which borders Utah. County assessor records show 28 LDS-owned properties in Bear Lake County that were excluded from the data, such as the future site of a temple in Montpelier and the Paris Tabernacle, a historic meetinghouse.
In Blaine County, the data listed only a single property: a church in Hailey. County records show the church owns at least two other meetinghouses, as well as two camps near Alturas Lake. Data shows no LDS-owned properties in Gem County, home to Emmett, while the county’s records show several.
Many other counties show slight discrepancies with the data that point to additional properties either left out or acquired after the information was collected. Most of the Idaho properties have no assessed value, meaning the true extent of the church’s real estate wealth is unknown.
This story was originally published April 26, 2022 at 5:00 AM.
