We have no way of knowing that, because the church keeps their finances shrouded from public view. Not even members that have paid 10% for their entire lives have a view into how the money is spent.
What we do have is a few leaked pay stubs showing actual amounts, and leaked memos acknowledging the existence of, but not quantifying, other forms of compensation. We also have some tangible evidence of the large net worth of various leaders of the church. The typical excuse is that they made lots of money before they were general authorities...but we also have proof of large (8-figure) net worths of people like Thomas Monson, who was a church employee (notorious for lower than market pay) for his entire career.
So what we really have is some leaked proof of a decently sized lower bound on compensation and knowledge that it goes higher than that, with the possibility that it could go much higher. How much higher, we don't know. And we won't until the church decides to actually share their finances.
I know that unapproved critical thinking is looked down on in the mormon church, but if I were a believing member, I would probably be asking why they won't do just that. If they really are responsible and meagerly paid stewards of god's money, they have nothing to lose, and everything to gain, by being transparent about it. Occam's razor tells me that they're a bunch of liars and secrecy suits them far better than transparency does.
To me, Occam's Razor suggests not that there is a massive conspiracy in the upper echelons of the LDS church where general authorities are glutting themselves on tithes, but rather that Thomas S. Monson had private sources of income outside of his church employment that account for his wealth.
And if it weren't for the fact that there are several thousand known and published leaks of information that the church has tried to cover up and whitewash through "official" media, then that might be a reasonable assumption.
It's not a massive conspiracy. It's a very simple conspiracy: don't tell people what you do with the money they give you, and then they don't have any way to criticize you about how you use it. In fact, the very culture that they've fostered to enable this freedom from criticism (just trust me, I'm a mormon bishop!) has become a problem that others have begun to exploit.
We have no way of knowing that, because the church keeps their finances shrouded from public view. Not even members that have paid 10% for their entire lives have a view into how the money is spent.
What we do have is a few leaked pay stubs showing actual amounts, and leaked memos acknowledging the existence of, but not quantifying, other forms of compensation. We also have some tangible evidence of the large net worth of various leaders of the church. The typical excuse is that they made lots of money before they were general authorities...but we also have proof of large (8-figure) net worths of people like Thomas Monson, who was a church employee (notorious for lower than market pay) for his entire career.
So what we really have is some leaked proof of a decently sized lower bound on compensation and knowledge that it goes higher than that, with the possibility that it could go much higher. How much higher, we don't know. And we won't until the church decides to actually share their finances.
I know that unapproved critical thinking is looked down on in the mormon church, but if I were a believing member, I would probably be asking why they won't do just that. If they really are responsible and meagerly paid stewards of god's money, they have nothing to lose, and everything to gain, by being transparent about it. Occam's razor tells me that they're a bunch of liars and secrecy suits them far better than transparency does.