Additional principal payments are qualified expenses for the clergy housing allowance, but they are subject to limitations.
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Video: Q&A: Can you claim a pastoral housing allowance if you pay taxes as if self-employed?
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?
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How Does The Minister’s Housing Allowance Affect Social Security Retirement Benefits?
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 awarded based on a worker’s earnings history. They look at your top 35 years’ worth of earnings and add in zeroes if you have less than 35 years of work history. Those earnings that they use to calculate benefits DO include your housing allowance.
Both the cash housing allowance and the parsonage allowance count as income when calculating Social Security retirement benefits. Even if you only get paid $20,000 per year, if you also live for free in a parsonage that is worth $20,000 a year, your Social Security earnings report will show that you had $40,000 of income.
How does the Social Security Administration know how much your parsonage is worth? You tell them on Schedule SE. All pastors are required to pay Social Security and Medicare taxes as if they were self-employed. That means, instead of having an employer withhold and pay those taxes through the FICA system, you have to calculate them on Schedule SE along with your regular tax return and pay them that way. Thus, your housing allowance is included and affects your Social Security retirement benefits. To see what the Social Security Administration has on file as your personal earnings history, set up an account with them at ssa.gov.
Taxability of Benefits
While you’re working and earning money, your income affects the size of the Social Security retirement benefit you will be eligible for in the future. Then, once you start collecting your benefit, your income affects whether or not that benefit is taxed.
Yes, you may have to pay taxes on your Social Security retirement benefits. The percentage of your benefits that are taxed depends on your income and there are three different tiers. For 2021, a single person’s Social Security benefits are not taxed if their provisional income is under $25,000 (it is $32,000 for a married couple). For single tax filers earning between $25,000 and $34,000 or married couples earning between $32,000 and $44,000, up to 50% of benefits may be taxable. Above those limits, up to 85% of your Social Security benefits can be subject to income taxes.
This will affect you if you or your spouse start to collect Social Security benefits while you are still working. The big question for pastors is, does your housing allowance count as income? Will your housing allowance make more of your Social Security benefits taxable?
It’s your lucky day, the answer is no. The income used to calculate the taxability of Social Security benefits is called “provisional income.” When calculating provisional income, you pull your income numbers from the front of Form 1040 and Schedule 1 and the housing allowance does not appear on either of those. All that to say, your cash housing allowance or parsonage allowance should not increase the taxability of your benefits.
Work With A Professional
If you’re trying to figure out your taxes and Social Security benefits, I recommend working with a professional who understands the ins and outs of clergy tax issues. Most tax professionals do not understand these issues, so make sure to find one who does.
How can you determine if a tax professional understands clergy taxes? Ask these two questions:
- Are pastors employees or self-employed for Social Security tax purposes?
- Is a pastor’s church salary subject to income tax withholding?
If they don’t answer these two questions correctly, look elsewhere. Chances are, you will know more than they do (because you read this blog, of course!). In case you’re wondering, here are the answers to the questions:
- Pastors are always self-employed for Social Security tax purposes. Learn more.
- Pastors are not subject to income tax withholding. Learn more.
For a list of reader-recommended (I have not worked with them personally) tax preparers, check out the end of this article. I myself do not prepare tax returns.
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Video: Q&A: Do Life Care Facilities Qualify for the Housing Allowance?
Can money in a 403(b) be claimed as a housing allowance in retirement for someone living in a life care facility where the cost includes meals and medical care? How should that situation be handled?
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What Are The Different Parts Of A Minister’s Compensation Package?
The Apostle Paul told Timothy in 1 Timothy 5:17-18 that “The elders who direct the affairs of the church well are worthy of double honor, especially those whose work is preaching and teaching. For Scripture says, “Do not muzzle an ox while it is treading out the grain,” and “The worker deserves his wages.” (NIV)
I agree. You are worth your wages. But what are your wages?
We commonly think of wages as simply your salary, what you get paid to work. However, compensation can be a whole lot more than just a salary. This is especially true for pastors because of the unique opportunities that you have access to. There are a number of different things that comprise compensation, but they can be broken into two basic categories: income and benefits.
Ministerial Income
Income is actual money that’s coming to you. It’s something tangible that you can put in your bank account.
Salary
A pastor’s salary isn’t much different than anyone else’s salary. It’s money that you get paid for doing a job. You have to pay taxes on the money and you get to do whatever you want with it.
Social Security & Medicare Offset
Pastors are dual-status taxpayers for Social Security purposes and thus have to pay both the employee and employer portions of that tax. If you’re not familiar with that, follow the link in the last sentence or none of this will make sense to you.
Some churches feel bad that pastors have to pay the employer portion of the Social Security and Medicare taxes and want to help them cover the cost. They calculate how much an employer would normally pay for the pastor, 7.65%, and pay that as additional salary. It is a nice gesture and definitely helpful to the pastor. Nevertheless, a Social Security and Medicare offset is simply additional taxable income in the eyes of the IRS.
Housing Allowance
Another type of income unique to ministers is the housing allowance. This site has all kinds of articles related to the housing allowance and I even wrote a book on it.
Basically, the housing allowance is income that is exempt from federal income taxation and can only be used for qualified housing expenses. It is also exempt from most state income taxes as well. Nevertheless, it is not exempt from Social Security & Medicare taxes.
Equity Allowance
The final type of pastoral income is specific to pastors who live in a parsonage. A parsonage is church-provided housing. As such, a pastor who lives in a parsonage does not have the opportunity to build home equity. When the ministry position is gone, the pastor has to start from scratch with housing.
This is the opposite experience for most Americans who purchase a home. As they pay down their mortgage and home values rise, their equity increases. Many people are able to pay off their mortgage by the time they retire so that they have lower housing expenses in retirement and a valuable asset that they can pull equity from if necessary.
Pastors who live in a parsonage often find themselves at retirement homeless and equity-less. To make up for that, many churches pay their pastors an equity allowance to help build towards purchasing a home in retirement. If they pay it directly to the pastor’s retirement account, it receives tax benefits and the pastor cannot access it for other things until retirement. If it is given as a cash payment, it is treated as taxable income by the IRS.
Ministerial Benefits
While income is money that you get, benefits are more of services or products provided to you. They are not cash and will not grow your bank account, but they are still very important to your overall financial life.
Health
One of the most valuable benefits that an employer can provide is health insurance. It is much more expensive to purchase health insurance as an individual than through a group policy. Also, premiums paid through an employer-sponsored health insurance plan are tax-free. Other health-related benefits that churches can provide to all of their employees are dental and vision insurance, health reimbursement arrangements, flexible spending accounts, or health savings accounts if in conjunction with a high-deductible health insurance plan.
Life Insurance
Another benefit that is helpful to both the pastor and the church (because they would want to care for the pastor’s family if anything happened) is life insurance. Up to $50,000 of group term life insurance can be provided tax-free and the premiums on any amounts above that are considered taxable income to the pastor (based on specific IRS calculations).
Disability Insurance
Most pastors are at greater risk of becoming disabled than dying. As such, disability insurance is a very valuable benefit. Like health insurance, it is also much more affordable when purchased as part of a group plan rather than as an individual.
Retirement Savings
A retirement savings account, usually a 403(b), is a benefit that has multiple advantages for pastors. Not only are pastors able to save for retirement pre-tax, but having a church-sponsored retirement plan makes it possible to claim a housing allowance in retirement and also entirely avoid paying Social Security and Medicare taxes on contributions.
Paid Leave
Even God took time to rest. As such, it is important for pastors to have access to paid leave (and a culture where they are encouraged to take it). It can be broken down in different ways, but paid leave can include sick days, holidays, vacation time, family leave, professional development, outside ministry, and sabbaticals. It is also important for the church to respect the pastor’s time off and pitch in to get work done while the pastor is away.
Parsonage
All of the other benefits (not income) listed here can be given to all church staff but a parsonage is only for ordained, licensed, or commissioned ministers. A parsonage is a church-owned home that a pastor gets to live in income tax-free.
Those are the different pieces that can be fit together to create a ministerial compensation package. Both pastors and their churches should understand these different components in order to create a tax-efficient compensation package that meets the pastor’s needs. Pastors, share this with whoever in your church makes salary decisions, whether it’s a board of directors, stewardship committee, an HR department, or whoever. Sit down and review it together to make sure your church is fulfilling 1 Timothy 5 to the best of its ability.
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Video: Q&A: How does the housing allowance work without a mortgage?
A look at how the clergy housing allowance works and why you can still claim it even without a mortgage.
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How Does The Minister’s Housing Allowance Affect Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) Benefits?
The Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) is a government insurance program that provides low-cost health insurance to children from families that earn too much to qualify for Medicaid but not enough to be able to afford private insurance. This includes many pastors’ children.
CHIP Eligibility Is Based On Income
Like many such programs, eligibility is based on income. That’s simple for most people, but can be a cause of uncertainty for pastors. You start filling out the forms and when you get to the income line, you pause. Your salary is $30,000. Your housing allowance is $20,000. So what’s your income? $30,000 or $50,000? Ugh! No one else has this problem, why does being a pastor have to be so hard?
CHIP Income Calculation & The Clergy Housing Allowance
Being a pastor is hard, I know it. While I can’t fix the people in your church, I can at least solve this little problem for you. CHIP income DOES NOT include the housing allowance. That’s good news for you!
CHIP uses the same methodology for calculating income as most categories of Medicaid and the premium tax credit. This is the calculation used:
Adjusted Gross Income (AGI)
+Non-Taxable Social Security Benefits
+Tax-Exempt Interest
+Excluded Foreign Income
=Modified Adjusted Gross Income (MAGI)
Your AGI comes from your tax return, Form 1040, and does not include the housing allowance. As we can see from the above calculation, it isn’t added back in, either. If you don’t trust me, follow the link above and see for yourself.
To conclude, Pastor, now you can fill out your application with confidence. Your clergy housing allowance is not included in income for the Children’s Health Insurance Program.
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Video: Q&A: How Do You Get The Housing Allowance For A Pastor?
Here’s a step-by-step description of how to set a housing allowance for a pastor, what needs to be done throughout the year, how to report it to the IRS, and what to do if you have excess housing allowance.
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How Do You Report Your Clergy Housing Allowance To The IRS?
This is an excerpt from my book, The Pastor’s Wallet Complete Guide to the Clergy Housing Allowance:
The church is not required to report the housing allowance to the IRS. Unless a church includes it in an informational section on Form W-2, the IRS and the Social Security Administration (SSA) are only made aware of the housing allowance when a minister files Schedule SE to pay Social Security taxes under SECA.
Form W-2
You should review your Form W-2 that you receive every year to make sure your church prepared it correctly. Many church treasurers and bookkeepers have received absolutely zero training, they’re just doing it because they’re not good at saying no. So, make sure to double check. This is what it should look like:
Box 1
Wages excluding housing allowance. This is what the church reports to the IRS as your income. The housing allowance is exempt from income and should therefore not be reported here. If it is, the IRS will think you owe more in taxes and you will have a mess on your hands. If your church accidentally includes your housing allowance in Box 1, have them correct the mistake right away by filing an amended Form W-2.
Boxes 3, 4, 5, and 6
These boxes are for Social Security and Medicare and, regardless of the housing allowance, should be blank. That is because ministers are considered self-employed for Social Security purposes as we discussed already. It was in that exciting SECA/FICA excursus that you probably skipped. Don’t worry about it, it’s boring stuff, you can just take my word for it.
Again, your income is not reported for Social Security and Medicare purposes on Form W-2 and churches are not supposed to withhold payroll taxes for you. Rather, you have to calculate your own Social Security and Medicare tax payments on Schedule SE and file it with your tax return.
Box 14
Box 14 is for informational purposes only. As such, your church is allowed to use it to report the amount designated as a cash housing allowance. However, this is not required and some churches report it in other ways. If there is nothing in your Box 14, then you should expect other communication from your church regarding your housing allowance amount.
Box 16
Box 16 is for state wages and would be filled out as per your state’s laws.
Non-Employee Ministers
Ministers who are not employed by a specific church, such as traveling evangelists, will not receive a W-2. Rather, you may receive a Form 1099-NEC (Form 1099-MISC for tax years prior to 2020). Any church that has paid you over $600 in a year is required to issue you one. For them to be able to do so, you will need to submit Form W-9 to them prior to providing your services. Form W-9 simply contains the basic information they will need to be able to report your income to the IRS.
The $600 trigger does not include a housing allowance that was properly designated in advance, reimbursed expenses, or contributions to a 403(b). Thus, if you claim all of your income from a specific church as a housing allowance, they aren’t required to give you anything to show for it. It is up to you to track the income you receive from various churches and how much of it is eligible for the housing allowance.
Form 1099-R For Pension Distributions
Under certain circumstances, you may be able to claim a ministerial housing allowance even during retirement. The next chapter will discuss this in detail.
If you take a housing allowance during retirement, you will receive a 1099-R instead of a W-2. Your housing allowance may or may not be listed on the 1099-R. The form may just say “Taxable Amount Not Determined,” meaning that you have to decide which portion is taxable and which isn’t. If it is listed as a taxable distribution, you can still take it tax-free by including the housing allowance amount on line 4 of Form 1040. (Prior to 2018 it was on line 16.)
Housing Allowance Amount
Your church treasurer is responsible for providing you the amount of your annual housing allowance in writing at the end of the year. If you haven’t gotten one, try bringing the treasurer homemade brownies. They can really work wonders. A copy of the notification should also be kept in the church’s files.
Notification can simply be a letter stating something along the lines of, “Your designated cash housing allowance for 2018 was $…” This letter goes to the pastor and not to the IRS. It is for informational purposes only. It is not attached to the pastor’s tax return that is sent to the IRS, either. You’ll have plenty of other papers to send them, so keep this one for yourself.
Also, as mentioned above, the housing allowance amount can be included in Box 14 on Form W-2. Box 14 is an informational box that employers use to report various kinds of information to employees, such as retirement contributions and housing allowance. Box 14 would simply say something like, “Housing: 18,000.” If it is included on Form W-2 then it has been reported to the IRS.
You will need this information to fill out Schedule SE and pay your SECA taxes.
Your church will report to you the amount paid as a cash housing allowance. However, if you live in a parsonage it is your responsibility to calculate the fair market rental value and include it on Schedule SE. Since you are the one receiving the tax benefit, it is your responsibility to do the calculations, not your church’s. Go back to the last chapter to learn about how to calculate the fair market rental value of a home.
Housing Expense Records
It is your responsibility as a pastor to track your housing expenses. Your church has no responsibility in this area beyond designating the housing allowance. If you claim an erroneous amount or don’t have the records to back up your claims, it is all on you and has nothing to do with the church.
In fact, it’s really none of their business how you use the housing allowance. That’s between you and the IRS. There is no need for you to submit your itemized expenses to the church or share them in any way. They are confidential.
Some churches have curious board members, but you can let them know that there is nothing in the law that requires them to know how you are spending your housing allowance. Just be nice about it, because they’re the ones that have to designate a housing allowance for you in the first place! If it doesn’t go over very well, go ahead and take them some brownies, too.
As you can see, it is important that you keep your own records. Make sure to keep receipts, mortgage statements, and any other evidence that supports your claim of a housing allowance. These will come in handy if you ever get questioned by the IRS. In an audit, the thicker the paper trail, the better. Digital “paper trails” also work well.
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What To Do If Your Clergy Housing Allowance Exceeds Your Actual Expenses
As we all know, nothing went quite as expected in 2020. In fact, for most of us, nothing went anywhere close to expected! Maybe you were planning on doing some work on your home and things got shut down because of COVID-19. Perhaps you were planning on spending some money on items for your home, but COVID-19 made you tighten your budget. Or things just didn’t go according to plan and it had nothing to do with COVID-19! (But we’re blaming everything on COVID-19 these days, right?)
While altering your plans is always annoying, it is a bit more significant for pastors when it comes to housing expenses. At the beginning of the year, you have to carefully estimate your yearly housing expenses in order to avoid paying taxes on them with the clergy housing allowance. You meticulously calculate your anticipated rent, utilities, home purchases, and big projects.
And then something like this happens. The whole world hits pause. Your plans get tossed by the wayside and your expenses were lower than the housing allowance that your church gave you. You should have been paying taxes on some of that money and you didn’t.
Now, what do you do?
Excess Housing Allowance Is Taxable Income
What the housing allowance is is a provision that allows you to exclude your housing expenses from gross income for federal tax purposes. At the beginning of the year, you tell your church how much of your income you plan to use for housing and that amount is not reported to the IRS as income.
However, if you don’t use it all for housing by the end of the year, you need to let the IRS know and pay federal income taxes on the rest. Let’s see what that looks like in real life.
Say your church pays you $60,000 a year. You designate $25,000 of that as a housing allowance so your church only reports to the IRS that you had $35,000 of taxable income.
If you only spend $22,000 on housing for the year, you have an extra $3,000 that you should have paid taxes on but didn’t. You need to add that extra $3,000 of housing allowance back into your income and pay taxes on it. Not doing so is tax evasion and will get you into trouble if the IRS audits you.
How To Report Your Excess Housing Allowance
So, how do you report it as income in order to pay taxes?
Add it in with your other wages on line 1 of your Form 1040. Then, on the dotted line next to it, write, “Excess allowance” and the amount. Here is an example:
Yes, it is as simple as that. Now it is added in with your wages for when your taxes are calculated.
That’s how to include it for income taxes, but what about SECA, your Social Security and Medicare taxes? Well, you don’t have to worry about that at all. Because you always have to pay SECA taxes on your housing allowance, claiming too much won’t make any difference in what you have to pay. You are already paying the full amount on Schedule SE.
What You Can Do Differently For Next Year
Now, while ending the year with excess housing allowance may have made your heart skip a beat and worried you a bit, it wasn’t that bad, was it? With such an easy way to correct it, it’s often better to err on the side of claiming too large an allowance than too small.
Too many pastors don’t claim a large enough housing allowance and end up needlessly paying extra taxes. The best way to avoid that and limit your tax bill is by overestimating your yearly housing allowance.
There is one thing I need to note, though. There is a potential downside to overestimating your housing allowance.
Things To Watch Out For
Your housing allowance lowers your gross income for federal tax purposes and there are some important things that are limited by your gross income. The biggest one that most pastors need to watch out for is the refundable portion of the Child Tax Credit. Claiming too much of a housing allowance can actually limit the amount of money you can get. This article explains why. Contributions made to retirement accounts are also calculated and limited based on income. There is a chance that by overestimating your housing allowance you could negatively affect the amount of money that you can save for retirement.
Make sure to look into those two things before blindly following my suggestion that overestimating is better than underestimating. Remember, just because you read something on the internet doesn’t mean it’s necessarily best for your unique situation.
Now that you’ve fixed last year’s housing allowance, what about this year’s? Is it already approved by your church with an accurate estimate or overestimate?
If not, you’d better get on it! The housing allowance cannot be used retroactively, so every day you procrastinate is another day that you are paying taxes on your housing allowance unnecessarily. If you need to make a change, make one. The IRS does not limit the amount of changes you make to your housing allowance or the timing of them, as long as they are done proactively.
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