I think the stingyness is a Utah/Idaho thing, or maybe even a social class thing. I just don’t see it in upper-middle-class Texas. (Not trying to bash on Utah, I grew up there. I still consider myself a Utahn, not a Texan, but that’s changing.)

I don’t feel bad about that. I was offered free turkeys and food baskets during the holidays, and our branch president gave me an order form for food from the storehouse. I did not use it. I can manage without, so I am; we have what we need, though some days I remember steak dinners and feel very sorry for myself. Oh well! When I have more than I need, I will continue to remember those who do not have what they need. I think there are billions of people in the world who have far less than I do. I won’t take what could go to some of them, and as long as I can put a meal on the table from our own resources, that is going to be true. I note I have an internet connection and cell phones. I’d be ungrateful to consider myself needy.

I hope as my business takes off, I will become a giver. I have fantasies of writing six figure tithing checks. I hope in the meantime that the Lord sees my not taking as giving. It’s the best I can do. Sometimes I wonder how in the world a family so rich as we are could qualify for food stamps, welfare help of any kind. Most American households waste more than they need (though there is genuine need out there.)

I certainly didn’t see one in my time in South America. My wife and I decided to double our fast offerings after a plea from the Bishop. Imagine my suprise when I found out a few months later that the average monthly contribution for the ward totalled only about double what my wife and I donated out of our Peace Corps stipend. This was in a ward where Elders quorum activites often consisted of mixing and pouring concrete so that some family could move up from a dirt floor in their one-room house.

We love the new Perpetual Education Fund, by the way. Maybe someday our old ward in Bolivia will run a fast offering surplus. So many bright young men and women in our area came off their missions, married as they should have, and found themselves financially unable to continue in school.

I also agree with others who say that tithing really isn’t a charitable donation. Many people pay it so they can go to the temple or because it is a commandment, not because they think it fulfils some humanitarian purpose. From a comparative standpoint, tithing is more like taxes than charitable donations. Fast offerings would be closer to charitable donations than tithing.

We pay taxes to receive highways, health care, education, security, and so on. We pay tithing to keep our buildings maintained, pay for commercials, provide broadcast systems for conference, maintain the Church’s website, keep prices of videos at 4-6$ and so on.

Maybe that’s another reason why active mormon women work less outside the home…

Based on the above, I think that the $40M was to the Community of Christ, not the LDS Church.

You’re right. I was using pre-Bush tax cut rates (it’s been awhile since my tax classes at byu). It looks like the top federal bracket now is 35%. Short-term gains (for stock held less than a year) are taxed at 35% (the same as ordinary income) and long term gains are taxed at 15%.

So in my scenario above, your effective tithing rate is 2.5% if the stock had been held for less than a year and 4.5% if it had been held for more than a year.