About XOM Making More Money Than God -- June 14, 2022

From Time, the Vatican, FEBRUARY 26, 1965 -- 1965 --

Bankers' best guesses about the Vatican's wealth put it at $10 billion to $15 billion. Of this wealth, Italian stockholdings alone run to $1.6 billion, 15% of the value of listed shares on the Italian market. The Vatican has big investments in banking, insurance, chemicals, steel, construction, real estate. Dividends help pay for Vatican expenses and charities such as assisting 1,500,000 children and providing some measure of food and clothing to 7,000,000 needy Italians. Unlike ordinary stockholders, the Vatican pays no taxes on this income, which led the leftist Rome weekly L'Espresso last week to call it "the biggest tax evader in Italy."

In 1962, Italy placed a 15% tax on all stock dividends, which two years later was raised to a 30% maximum. A rider to the original law that would have exempted the Vatican was specifically struck down. Nevertheless, the Vatican refused to pay the taxes—which might run upwards of $15 million a year-citing the Lateran Treaty of 1929 between Pope Pius XI and Mussolini. At that time, Italy agreed to pay the Pope $39 million in cash and $52 million in 5% government bonds as indemnity for losses suffered by the Pope when the Papal States were incorporated into Italy in 1870. Under Pius XII, Vatican money was shrewdly invested in stocks and real estate, and the capital has multiplied manyfold. The treaty also recognized the sovereignty of the Vatican, and a 1942 law written "in the spirit of the Concordat" exempted the Vatican from paying certain taxes then existing on dividends.

Fast forward to three weeks ago, link here:

the annual Peter's Pence collection brought in around 50 million euros (about $54 million). But the Holy See’s deficit was higher. It was therefore necessary, he suggested, to make investments to give the Holy See greater liquidity.

The investments were overseen by the Secretariat of State’s administrative office, which had established a complex financial architecture over the years, using various current accounts, including some located abroad, and always seeking out investments of a particular type.

 To the best of my knowledge, God does not pay taxes in the US, unlike XOM.

For what it's worth, the Vatican's net assets in 2019, link here, about 4 billion euros.

Compare that to the average yearly income of Catholics around the world. One might want to start with those Catholics in sub-Saharan Africa.