The author enjoys a periodic, friendly parley with a former member of the LDS Church on TikTok who is well-read and informed about Church history and the organization's current activities. Their opinions are typically presented as intellectually honest critique, and their personal experiences and perspective are very much appreciated. One recurring topic in his work addresses the Church's management of its assets through for-profit subsidiary companies.
They began a TikTok post with the following statement, “What is totally normal for a church to do...” (emphasis reasonably true to the creator’s sarcastic tone—provided without judgment, because it’s consistent with their particular style). They asked for commentary from active members, and the author obliged, sharing their thoughts in the comments.
Curious whether this is normal for a church to do, the author also used readily available online tools to research it and was presented with the following:
Tax-Exempt Religions That Own For-Profit Companies
A sourced survey of churches, ministries, and other organized religions that hold tax-exempt or charitable status while owning, controlling, or operating commercial businesses.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints gets most of the attention on this subject, and for understandable reasons: Ensign Peak Advisors, a $100-billion-class investment arm, and a portfolio that runs from insurance to farmland to a downtown shopping mall. But the structure itself is not unusual. Across denominations, countries, and centuries, tax-exempt religious bodies have built, bought, or spun off commercial enterprises. So, this “...is totally normal for a church to do...”
What follows is a list assembled from primary filings, regulator reports, and reporting, with the LDS Church deliberately set aside. Three different structures get conflated in most coverage, so they are separated here:
- A tax-exempt religious body that owns a genuinely for-profit, taxable corporation.
- A tax-exempt body running a large commercial business inside the exempt shell itself.
- Unusual tax categories, such as the 501(d) apostolic association, that blur the line entirely.
Every entry is tied to a source that states the ownership or the business.
Part One: Exempt Bodies With For-Profit Subsidiaries
Church of Scientology
The IRS stripped Scientology's US entities of exemption in 1967 and restored it in 1993. The "Church" is not one corporation but a "conglomerate of privately-held interrelated corporations," per Wikipedia's overview of the Church of Scientology. The clearest for-profit node: Author Services, Inc., incorporated October 13, 1981 as a "for-profit corporation" to publish L. Ron Hubbard's fiction, wholly owned by the Church of Spiritual Technology by 1993, and merged into Galaxy Press, LLC in 2015 — documented in the entry on Galaxy Press. Bridge Publications was set up as the nonprofit counterpart for the scripture side.
Unification Church / Family Federation
Tongil Group, a South Korean chaebol, was founded in 1963 "as a nonprofit organization which would provide revenue for the Unification Church," then expanded into pharmaceuticals, tourism, and publishing; holdings include Ilwha ginseng, Ilshin Stone, and Tongil Heavy Industries, which makes machine parts "including hardware for the South Korean military" (Tongil Group). On the US side, News World Communications was founded in 1976, and The Washington Times is now held through The Washington Times LLC under Operations Holdings, described as "a diversified conglomerate owned by the Unification Church" (News World Communications).
Christian Broadcasting Network
CBN was Pat Robertson's "not-for-profit television ministry." The Family Channel was spun out of it into International Family Entertainment, Inc. and taken public in a 1992 IPO, while The 700 Club stayed behind with CBN as the nonprofit entity and kept a guaranteed prime-time slot, per Encyclopedia.com's corporate history of International Family Entertainment. CBN's earlier commercial arm was Continental Broadcasting Network (CBN).
Trinity Church Wall Street
The Episcopal parish's property arm, Trinity Real Estate, folded much of its portfolio into Hudson Square Properties LLC, a joint venture in which Trinity holds a 51 percent majority of eleven office buildings totaling 4.9 million square feet, with Norges Bank at 48 percent over a 75-year ownership period (Hines). In 2018 the parish sold Disney 99-year development rights at 4 Hudson Square in a transaction valued at $650 million (Trinity Church Wall Street).
The Episcopal Church (Church Pension Fund)
A New York regulator's examination report identifies Church Life Insurance Corporation, The Church Insurance Company, and The Church Insurance Company of Vermont as "wholly owned insurance companies" of the Fund, along with PFP Realty Holding Company Inc. (NY Department of Financial Services). They are marketed collectively with Church Insurance Agency Corporation and Church Insurance Holdings LLC (Church Pension Group).
Southern Baptist Convention (GuideStone)
This is the rare case where the status is stated outright in the authorizing documents: the SBC Executive Committee approved GuideStone Life Insurance Co. as a for-profit Texas corporation, alongside four nonprofit affiliates (The Alabama Baptist).
Knights of Columbus
The Catholic fraternal society has over $100 billion of insurance in force and about 1.9 million members. Knights of Columbus Asset Advisors is "a wholly owned subsidiary of KofC" and an SEC-registered investment adviser (Knights of Columbus, KoCAA). Note the structure: a fraternal benefit society, not a 501(c)(3).
The Potter's House / T.D. Jakes
TDJ Enterprises, founded in 1995, publishes Jakes's books and produces his films (T. D. Jakes). Worth a caveat: the source does not state church ownership, so this belongs in the category of pastor-adjacent commercial vehicles rather than confirmed church subsidiaries.
Transcendental Meditation movement
The movement's umbrella entities were nonprofit — the World Plan Executive Council reported $40 million in tax-exempt revenue from 1970 to 1974 — but television station KSCI was owned by the movement and "switched to for-profit status in 1980" (Transcendental Meditation movement).
Amana Church Society
The cleanest historical template for a church-business separation. In 1932 the communal Amana Society's business functions were split into Amana Society (II), a "for-profit joint-stock corporation without religious dimensions," leaving the Amana Church Society as the religious body (World Religions and Spirituality Project).
Part Two: The International Picture
Universal Church of the Kingdom of God (IURD/UCKG)
A registered UK charity, number 1043985, with income averaging £12 million a year and roughly £15 million in a later year (UCKG). Founder Edir Macedo owns Record TV through Grupo Record, a multi-billion-reais broadcaster; separately, the church pays stations to air its programming under a practice known as leasing (Media Ownership Monitor Brazil).
Iglesia ni Cristo
Registered with the Philippine government as a church in 1914. Eagle Broadcasting Corporation — home of NET25 and Radyo Agila — is "a commercial subsidiary broadcasting network owned and controlled by the religious group Iglesia ni Cristo," a stock corporation founded in 1968 and listed as 100 percent INC-owned (Media Ownership Monitor Philippines). The church's holdings also include Maligaya Development Corporation and the 50,000-seat Philippine Arena (Media Ownership Monitor).
Ismaili Imamat / Aga Khan Development Network
The most explicit example anywhere. The Aga Khan Fund for Economic Development SA is described as "a Swiss for-profit entity," comprising more than 150 companies with $4.3 billion in revenue as of 2017, including Serena-brand Tourism Promotion Services, Industrial Promotion Services, Diamond Trust Bank, and the Kyrgyz Investment and Credit Bank — all sitting alongside AKDN's nonprofit agencies (AKFED).
Redeemed Christian Church of God (Nigeria)
Christ the Redeemer's Ministries was registered in 1985 as the church's "evangelical and business arm," according to Asonzeh Ukah's study at the University of Bayreuth. Haggai Mortgage Bank Ltd, which grew out of Haggai Savings and Loans and became a mortgage bank in April 2008, was "established upon the vision received by the General Overseer of the Redeemed Christian Church of God" (African Union for Housing Finance).
Living Faith Church Worldwide / Winners' Chapel
Dominion Publishing House was founded on December 5, 1992 and has published more than 120 books, most written by founder David Oyedepo (Living Faith Church Worldwide). Oyedepo has also moved into aviation (Nation Africa).
The Holy See
The Administration of the Patrimony of the Holy See manages nearly 5,500 properties worldwide; real estate was its main source of ordinary income at €44.5 million in 2025, and its investment portfolio ran roughly 17 percent equities, 32 percent bonds, and 29 percent physical gold (Reuters). The Vatican's $400-million-plus London property investment produced a criminal fraud trial (Forbes).
Part Three: Commercial Business Inside the Exempt Shell
These are the closest structural analogues to a church running businesses with no taxable subsidiary layer at all.
- Seventh-day Adventist Church. Sanitarium — legally the Australian Health and Nutrition Association Ltd and the New Zealand Health Association Ltd — is "wholly owned by the Seventh-day Adventist Church" and makes Weet-Bix, Up & Go, So Good, and Marmite (Sanitarium Health and Wellbeing Company). The company states it is "a registered charity" endorsed by the ACNC and the Australian Tax Office as income tax exempt (Sanitarium). In the US, the church-affiliated hospital network AdventHealth is a 501(c)(3) and "the largest Protestant nonprofit organization in the country" (AdventHealth).
- Bruderhof / Church Communities International. Community Playthings (classroom furniture and toys, developed in the 1950s), Rifton Equipment (mobility and rehabilitation equipment, 1977), and Danthonia Designs (signage, 2001). "Income from all businesses is pooled and used for the care of all members" (Bruderhof Communities).
- Gloriavale Christian Community, New Zealand. The "tax-exempt charity operating as the Christian Church Community Trust" reported more than $36.6 million in assets and $1.86 million in net profit, including a dairy farm, a deer enterprise, and an aircraft repair firm (NZ Herald).
- Hillsong. Hillsong International, the church's music and resources arm, is registered with the ACNC as a "Basic Religious Charity" and reported $42 million in income in its 2021 accounts. Three Hillsong BRCs held more than $100 million in assets, and BRCs are not required to file financial information with the regulator or the public (Crikey).
- Soka Gakkai. A "religious juridical person" in Japan since 1952 and "not subject to taxation as an organization" — though in 1991 it paid $4.5 million in back taxes on undeclared income from commercial transactions (Soka Gakkai).
Part Four: The 501(d) Oddity
The Twelve Tribes deserves its own category. In the United States the group operates as a 501(d) organization — described as "a for-profit organization with a religious purpose and a common treasury," which pays property taxes but whose structure "tends to result in no income tax liability." It is separately tax-exempt in Australia. Its enterprises include the Yellow Deli and Common Ground Café chains, Parchment Press, BOJ Construction, and Commonwealth Construction (Twelve Tribes communities). Reporting on that business network has documented unpaid and child labor (The Denver Post).
What Was Left Out, and Why
A few organizations that come up constantly in this conversation did not survive verification, and it seems worth saying so plainly:
- Trinity Broadcasting Network is a 501(c)(3), and its 2019 restructuring moved $860,132,250 in assets between nonprofit affiliates (MinistryWatch).
- Shen Yun Performing Arts, often assumed to be a business, is a 501(c)(3) with EIN 20-8812402 (Shen Yun).
- True World Foods, routinely described as a Unification Church company, states that it "is neither owned nor controlled by what is now known as the Unification Church" (True World Foods).
- Also set aside for lack of a documented for-profit subsidiary layer: Daystar / Word of God Fellowship, the Assemblies of God's Gospel Publishing House, Bethel Music (which files as a 501(c)(3)), and the Nation of Islam's Muhammad Farms. In each case the commercial activity is real; the corporate structure is not documented in sources I could verify.
The Pattern Worth Noticing
The most interesting variable across this list is not wealth. It is disclosure. Australia's Basic Religious Charity category exempts an organization from filing financials at all. New Zealand's Charities Services publishes them. US churches are exempt from the Form 990 that every other 501(c)(3) must file. Same underlying structure — a tax-exempt religion with a commercial engine — and wildly different amounts of public visibility depending on the flag it flies under.
Sources are linked inline throughout. Corrections and additions are welcome — particularly documented for-profit subsidiaries of US churches, where the reporting exemption makes verification hardest.
