The following is an excerpt from my book, The Pastor’s Wallet Complete Guide to the Clergy Housing Allowance: The IRS says it’s still possible to claim a housing allowance even after you retire and stop receiving a paycheck. Unfortunately, there is no clear law or hard and fast rules about this. There is little guidance and not a lot of certainty, so what we do know is cobbled together from various Revenue Rulings issued by the IRS.  Even in retirement, the rules that the housing allowance must be provided as payment for ministerial services and designated in advance by a qualifying organization still apply. Based on the information available to us, this is how those two requirements work themselves out in retirement: The allowance must be provided in payment for services that are ordinarily the duties of a minister of the gospel. According to the IRS, the housing allowance of a retired minister ...

Yes. There you have it, shortest blog post ever. But in all seriousness, this is an important matter that can make a huge difference during your retirement. If you didn’t take saving for retirement seriously during your early years, even just receiving a little help from the Social Security Administration could make a big impact your monthly income in retirement. Sounds great. So how does it work? Well, there are two ways: View post

https://youtu.be/qOU7x0PEA1I Additional principal payments are qualified expenses for the clergy housing allowance, but they are subject to limitations.

This is it, the announcement you’ve all been waiting for! I have created a virtual space for Pastor’s Wallet readers to connect, learn, and receive support. I know you’re probably thinking, “It’s about time!” but, hey, I’ve got a lot on my plate.  What The Pastor’s Wallet Community will be hosted on Facebook. I know some of you aren’t on Facebook and I completely understand. I actually avoided it for a long time as well, until I accepted the fact that I would never be invited to another social event if I weren’t. (That was before people realized they could text invitations.) If I were techy and had a lot of time, I might do something else. I might use a different platform. But I’m not, so you get Facebook. If you aren’t on Facebook right now, you have two choices. You can set up an account just to join the Pastor’s Wallet ...

https://youtu.be/z1f72R1aOCE Pastors are dual-status taxpayers who pay Social Security and Medicare taxes as if self-employed. But do you really have to pay the full 15.3% or is there a waiver available for clergy?

If you are a church employee, you may have to file Schedule SE (even though you're not self-employed) and pay double payroll taxes. This is why. View post

https://youtu.be/rxAM8VRzFlI Does the way you pay your taxes affect your ability to claim a housing allowance? What determines if you can claim a housing allowance or have to pay self-employment taxes? Do you have to pay taxes on the housing allowance?

Here at Pastor’s Wallet, we talk a lot about the clergy housing allowance because it’s such a unique benefit for pastors. In fact, I even wrote a book on the topic, as you can see from the above graphic. Today, we are going to talk about how the housing allowance affects Social Security benefits.  You see, your housing allowance is considered compensation for your ministerial services. However, there are a lot of different programs that use compensation numbers and only about half of them count the housing allowance in their calculations. What about Social Security? Does The Housing Allowance Count As Compensation For Social Security Purposes? The housing allowance affects different aspects of Social Security retirement benefits in different ways. Let’s take a look at our two main concerns regarding compensation and Social Security; benefit accumulation and taxability of benefits. Benefit Accumulation As you’ve read in other posts on this blog, Social Security benefits are ...

https://youtu.be/9VV0m-JA9HE There is only one time when a gift to a pastor can be tax-free, and that is at retirement IF certain IRS criteria are met.

Back in November, I gave you some homework. Did you do it? I hope so! Being on the same page as your spouse about your vision for the future is very important. I have some more homework for you again this week. It’s a lot like last time’s—getting on the same page as your spouse. Except this time the topic of conversation is in the nearer future. How Much Would You Like To Help Your Children Financially? After the retirement conversation, the next one is kids. Even if you don’t have kids, you may want to have this same conversation relating to other family members in general. How much financial support would you like to provide? Again, there is a wide spectrum of possible answers to this one. I’ve seen everything from “You start paying rent on your 18th birthday” to “I’ll keep paying your car insurance well into your 30’s.” The major ...