Tag Archives self-employment taxes

Should You Invest in a 403(b) with High Fees to Have a Housing Allowance in Retirement?

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Pastors who save into their church’s retirement plan are eligible to withdraw some of that money as a tax-free housing allowance in retirement. It’s a great benefit to have. Unfortunately, a lot of church retirement plans have investments with higher fees than are available in IRAs. Because of this, I have been asked multiple times if it is worth it. Does the ability to claim a housing allowance outweigh the cost of the higher fees?

As with everything in financial planning, the answer is that it depends. It depends on a lot of things, the primary one being your tax situation. Since the question involves calculations and doesn’t have an easy answer, I asked one of my amazing colleagues, Cal Treichler, to help me out. In addition to being a Certified Financial Planner, Certified Student Loan Planner, and PK, he’s also a spreadsheet whiz. In his free time, he created this spreadsheet that allows you to compare the housing allowance benefit with the benefit of lower investment fees:



Housing Allowance vs. Investment Fees Comparison

Let me show you how it works. Let’s say you have $500,000 in your 403(b) and you’re trying to decide if you should keep it where it is in a target date retirement fund with 0.8% fees or roll it into an IRA and invest in a Vanguard target date retirement fund with 0.08% fees. Your combined federal and state income tax rate is 22% and you have $20,000 of eligible annual housing expenses. This is what it looks like:



As you can see, between the fees and the housing allowance tax benefit, with the 403(b) you end up with a $400 net benefit while with the IRA you end up with a $400 net cost. The green box is the better deal for you. Isn’t that cool how he even color-coded the results? 

Now let’s look at how things change if your 403(b) investment fee is 1%. 


Here, even with the benefit of the housing allowance, you’ll still end up $200 ahead by having your money in the IRA with the lower fees. Go ahead and download the spreadsheet and play with the numbers. The higher your housing allowance and tax rate, the more advantageous the 403(b) while the higher the 403(b) fees, the more advantageous the IRA. 

The Effects of Social Security Taxes

A client recently asked me that same question about 403(b) vs. IRA. However, he wasn’t referring to money he had already built up in his 403(b) but new retirement contributions. In his case, there is another factor to consider. This pastor did not opt out of Social Security, so he pays about 15% of his income in self-employment taxes

Self-employment taxes is just another name for Social Security and Medicare taxes. Everyone has to pay them except for pastors who have opted out. In most cases, any money that you save for retirement has already had Social Security and Medicare taxes taken out. That is true for anything you put into IRAs and also most employer-sponsored retirement plans, even pre-tax accounts. 

The one exception is pastors. Because of the way pastors pay Social Security and Medicare taxes as if they are self-employed, contributions to employer-sponsored plans happen before those taxes are calculated. This is unique to pastors and the only way they can avoid paying those taxes without opting out

So, for a pastor who is participating in Social Security, putting $1,000 into an IRA and $1,000 into a church 403(b) is not a fair comparison. While you can put $1,000 into your 403(b), after paying the 15% taxes you only have $850 left to put into the IRA. How does that affect the decision?

Here is a chart that compares your options. The initial investment is $1,000 less any taxes that you have to pay before the money can go into the account. SECA taxes are 15% and for income taxes, I’m assuming 12% federal and 6% state. For 403(b) investment fees, I chose 0.8%, which is the fee for the PCA’s target date retirement fund since I’ve had a couple of clients invested in that recently. The IRA fees are Vanguard’s fee for their version of the same target date retirement fund.

AccountInitial InvestmentCalculationInvestment FeeBalance After 20 Years with 7% GrowthTaxation of Withdrawals
Church 403(b)$1,000No taxes paid0.80%$3,455Tax-free for housing allowance, otherwise subject to income tax
Traditional IRA$85015% SECA taxes paid0.08%$3,393Subject to income tax
Roth IRA$67015% SECA + 12% Federal + 6% State income taxes 0.08%$2,675Tax-free


As you can see, in this particular situation it is still more advantageous to invest in the 403(b) even though the investment fees are 10 times higher. That won’t be the case every time, so you’ll have to calculate it with your own unique numbers to get your own answer.  

I hope this spreadsheet is helpful for you and also the tip about avoiding SECA taxes!

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What is a Social Security Offset & How Does It Work?

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As you probably know if you read this blog (or can find out here), pastors have to pay both the employee and employer portions of Social Security and Medicare taxes as if they were self-employed. Those Social Security and Medicare taxes are also called SECA taxes, which is a lot faster to type so that’s what I’m going to call them from here on out. 

What Is A SECA Offset?

Some churches feel kind of bad that their pastors have to pay twice as much in SECA taxes than any other employee in the US. Since they aren’t allowed to pay SECA for their pastors, they instead pay them a little extra to cover the cost of the tax. That extra pay is called a SECA offset or Social Security offset. 

Even though it’s called a SECA offset, it’s technically just additional pay. In the eyes of the IRS, it’s just more taxable income. Even the church doesn’t really have any control over how the pastor uses that money. Unless the pastor is into tax evasion, though, I don’t think churches need to worry about whether or not it’s going towards SECA. 

How To Calculate The SECA Offset

When a church decides to pay their pastor a SECA offset, the next question is how much it should be. This is more complicated than it sounds. If you google it or read finance articles, you will see that usually the employer pays 7.65% and the employee pays 7.65% and pastors pay 15.3% SECA. But that’s not exactly right.

When you look at Schedule SE, which is the tax form used to calculate SECA, you’ll see that that tax rate is only applied to 92.35% of income. That means 7.65% is SECA-free. If you calculate that out, it means that half of a pastors SECA taxes are only really 7.0648% of the pastor’s income. 

Wait, that’s not all. The SECA offset is subject to federal and state income taxes as well. That means the SECA offset will increase the pastor’s income tax liability. Does the church need to offset that as well? It’s up to the church!

Whereas the SECA calculation is the same for everyone, different pastors are subject to different income tax rates. A pastor with a stay-at-home spouse may be in a 10% tax bracket while a pastor married to a cardiologist could be in a 35% tax bracket. Should the church calculate each SECA offset differently depending on the individual pastor’s tax situation?

How Much Should Churches Pay In SECA Offset?

I think if you ask the church to get that granular and specific, they’ll just give up on paying a SECA offset altogether!

My advice would be to just pick a calculation method and stick with it for everyone. Whether you do 7.65% or 7.0648% or something higher to help with income taxes, it doesn’t really matter a lot. The difference between 7.65% and 7.0648% of $100,000 is only $585. And most pastors don’t even make $100,000 so their difference would be even less. 

Pastors, don’t complain about tenths of a percent. Just be grateful your church is helping you out with this, many pastors don’t get any kind of offset. Churches, just pick something that won’t be too complicated for your poor volunteer treasurer and make her want to quit. How about a nice round 8%? 

If you get paid a SECA offset, let us know the calculation your church uses in the comments!

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Why Don’t Churches Pay Payroll Taxes For Ministers?

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Tax season has just come to an end and most of us are either eagerly awaiting a return or bemoaning how much we had to pay. The rest of you filed an extension and are still trying to get your papers together or get your tax preparer to answer your calls. Isn’t tax season fun?

If you haven’t opted out of Social Security, then you would have filed Schedule SE to calculate your Social Security and Medicare taxes, also called payroll taxes. Front and center, in the biggest, boldest print is the title for Schedule SE: Self-Employment Tax. But if you’re a church employee and not self-employed, why are you filling out a form for self-employment taxes? Allow me to enlighten you.

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How Pastors Can Avoid Paying Social Security Taxes Without Opting Out

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You didn’t opt out of Social Security because it doesn’t violate your conscience. But that doesn’t mean you like paying the tax. There are probably a lot of things you would rather do with that money. Do you have any other options?

Yes, you do. There is a legal way for you to avoid paying Social Security and Medicare taxes without opting out. And not only does it save you on taxes, but it’s really good for your future self as well. How do you do it? Make pre-tax contributions to your church’s retirement plan.

Pastors Pay Payroll Taxes Under SECA

Let me explain how that works. First, I have to remind you that pastors pay payroll taxes as if they were self-employed, under SECA. Confused? Read this article

Because you pay as if self-employed, your payroll taxes do not come out of your salary automatically as they do for other employees. You calculate your payroll taxes when you file your income tax return each spring. To do so, you take your taxable wages reported on your W-2 and add them to your housing allowance and pay taxes on the total. 

How Pre-Tax Retirement Contributions Work

Now we need to look at how retirement contributions work. When you make contributions to an employer’s retirement plan, your employer withholds the money before they pay you (and then sends it to your retirement account). The money never passes through your hands. 

If they are pre-tax (not Roth) contributions, then they never show up in your taxable income, either. That’s why they’re called pre-tax because they are taken out before your income is calculated for income tax purposes. You pay your income taxes on that money when you withdraw it from the account in retirement.

Most employees still have Social Security and Medicare taxes taken out of the money that they contribute to their employer’s retirement plan. But not pastors. Because your church can’t withhold those taxes for you, you pay them on your own. You calculate those taxes based on what is reported as taxable income to you. 

Lucky you, your retirement contributions don’t show up as taxable income. So you don’t have to pay Social Security and Medicare taxes on any of your pre-tax contributions to your church’s retirement account. And you don’t pay the taxes when you take the money out in retirement, either, you only have to pay income taxes. (Don’t worry, the IRS knows about this loophole and they are okay with it.) 

How It Works In Real Life

In case you weren’t able to follow all of that, let me give you an example (ignoring any housing allowance for simplicity’s sake). Let’s say you earn $60,000 and you make pre-tax contributions to your church’s 403(b) totaling $10,000. Since the contributions are pre-tax, your W-2 only shows $50,000 of income. If you hadn’t contributed to a retirement plan, you would have a taxable income of $60,000. 

What is the impact of that difference in taxable income? SECA taxes are 15.3%, though because of the way they are calculated they actually net out to 14.13%. You save $14.13 in taxes for every $100 pre-tax contribution you make. In our example, that’s a savings of $1,413! Pretty nice, right?

Claiming A Housing Allowance In Retirement

The icing on the cake is that you may even be able to avoid paying income taxes on the money when you take it out in retirement. Yes, you read that right. There is a way to get this money completely tax-free. How? Claim it as a housing allowance. Pastors are allowed to use money from a church retirement account as a housing allowance in retirement. This article elaborates on how that works. 

How To Start A Church Retirement Plan

Does this article make you sad that your church doesn’t sponsor a retirement plan for you to contribute to? Don’t be sad, just start one! It’s not as expensive and onerous as you think. I was genuinely surprised by how affordable it can be when I sat down to discuss it with Paul McWilliams, an advisor who helps churches set up retirement plans. Here is a post he wrote for Pastor’s Wallet on setting up a church retirement plan. 

If you’re thinking of starting a retirement plan, contact Paul or do a quick Google search to find some of the other companies that offer that service. I and my financial planning firm, Guide Financial Planning, do not set up retirement plans. At the moment, we only provide services for individuals. 

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How Can A Church Reverse Its FICA Exemption?

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Several months ago, I got an email that had me stumped. The writer was from a church that was exempt from paying FICA (payroll) taxes but wanted to start paying them. Since I was unsure how to answer the question, I referred her to a CPA that has helped me (and a lot of pastors and churches) with ministerial tax issues. She said she had searched the internet and couldn’t find an answer, so today I am solving that problem with the information provided by Wayne Vinson, CPA, of The Vin Group

Do Churches Pay FICA?

First, we have to look at the question of churches paying FICA. Not all churches pay FICA taxes for their employees. Churches have a choice. Churches who are opposed to paying FICA for religious reasons may exempt themselves by filing Form 8274. Employees of those churches have to pay their Social Security and Medicare payroll taxes as if they were self-employed

If a church is not opposed, then it will pay FICA taxes just like any other business for their non-minister employees. Ministers always pay all of their own payroll taxes as if they were self-employed unless they choose to opt out.  

How To Revoke A Church’s FICA Exemption

When a pastor opts out of Social Security and Medicare (payroll) taxes, it is permanent. There is no option to opt back in. However, the IRS does not take such a hard-line approach with churches. Churches are able to reverse their FICA exemption and start paying payroll taxes for their employees at any time. To revoke its exemption, a church simply has to start paying the taxes. 

How To Start Paying FICA Taxes For Churches

Form 941 is the form that employers file with the IRS along with the taxes that they have withheld from their employees’ paychecks. Even churches that don’t pay FICA fill this out and send it in with the income taxes that they have withheld from their (non-minister) employees’ pay. Exempt churches simply check a little box on the form (currently line 4) saying that they don’t have to pay Social Security and Medicare taxes and skip that section. 

To revoke the exemption, a church just doesn’t check that little box. Leave the box empty and then calculate the payroll tax obligation on the subsequent lines. Then, pay the tax liability in full when you submit the form. It’s that simple. You can make the change any time, just file and pay on or before the due date for the first quarter for which the revocation is to be effective. 

It would be wise, also, to let the non-minister employees know that they no longer have to pay both halves of the payroll taxes as if they were self-employed. I’m sure that will be welcome news for them. 

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How The Coronavirus Payroll Tax Deferral Affects Pastors

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With our current economic crisis brought on by the coronavirus, Congress and the President have been taking action to relieve some of the burdens for taxpayers and businesses. One area where they are providing a break is payroll taxes, the taxes paid to fund the Social Security and Medicare programs. If you have opted out of Social Security, then this article does not apply to you. If you aren’t exempt, then this article is very important for you, since you are a dual status taxpayer.

How Payroll Taxes Work For Pastors

Being a dual status taxpayer means that even if you are employed by a church, you have to pay your payroll taxes as if you were self-employed. For normal employees, payroll taxes are split evenly between the employer and the employee. The employer pays 7.65% of the employee’s income to the government and the employee also pays 7.65%.

When a person is self-employed, they hold both roles of employer and employee. Thus, they have to pay 7.65% as the employer and another 7.65% as the employee for a total of 15.3% of their income in self-employment payroll taxes. Pastors have to pay these taxes as if they were self-employed, even if they really are employed by a church. As such, pastors pay the full 15.3% tax and the church that employs them pays nothing.

Self-Employment Taxes Deferred Under The CARES Act

Congress passed the Coronavirus, Aid, Relief and Economic Security (CARES) Act at the end of March and the President signed it into law. Part of that Act allowed employers to defer paying payroll taxes. It applies to payroll taxes on income earned between March 27, 2020, when the Act was signed into law, and December 31, 2020. Employees still have to pay their 7.65%, but employers are allowed to put off paying it until later. 

How does that affect pastors? The CARES Act allows pastors to defer payment of half of their self-employment taxes, which represent the employer portion. Half of the deferred taxes are due by December 31, 2021, and the other half is due by December 31, 2022. That means that you only have to pay 7.65% of self-employment taxes between March 27 and December 31 of this year and you won’t be penalized for not paying the full 15.3%. However, you will have to pay the taxes eventually, half in 2021 and half in 2022.

The Presidential Memorandum On Payroll Tax Deferral

On August 8, 2020, President Trump issued a Memorandum on Deferring Payroll Tax Obligations in Light of the Ongoing COVID-19 Disaster. A presidential memorandum is also called an executive order and is a directive, not a law, since laws must be passed by Congress. 

This particular executive order directs the Secretary of the Treasury “to use his authority to defer certain payroll tax obligations with respect to the American workers most in need.” It provides for a deferral of the employee portion of payroll taxes incurred between September 1, 2020, to December 31, 2020. As with the CARES Act, half of the deferred taxes would be due December 31, 2021, and the other half would be due December 31, 2022. The deferral only applies to people who make less than $4,000 bi-weekly, which is about $104,000 a year. 

The memorandum also states, “The Secretary of the Treasury shall explore avenues, including legislation, to eliminate the obligation to pay the taxes deferred pursuant to the implementation of this memorandum.” The President doesn’t want people to have to pay those payroll taxes at all. He just doesn’t have the authority to do that, so he’s asking the Secretary of the Treasury to look for a way. The executive order doesn’t say how this will be implemented practically. It’s the Secretary of the Treasury’s job to figure that out and let everyone know. 

Should Pastors Defer Their Payroll Taxes?

Between the CARES Act and the executive order, you can defer half of the self-employment taxes due on income earned between March 27, 2020, and August 31, 2020, and all of the payroll taxes you would usually owe for work done between September 1, 2020, and December 31, 2020. Should you do it?

My first question would be, do you need to? Are you struggling to feed your family and keep the lights on? Then I would say you should take advantage of any relief you can get. But, if you’re doing fine and have no trouble paying the taxes, I would probably just pay them. This is only a deferral, so you’ll have to pay them eventually. If you don’t pay them now, you’ll likely have to pay them in addition to your current payroll taxes over the next two years. 

Remember, though, this is just my opinion without knowing the facts of your situation. Look at your own numbers and what is going on in your life, pray about it, and do what God says, even if it’s the opposite of what I say. 

One thing to note, under the CARES Act you will not get a refund of deferred amounts when you file your Form 1040 next spring. If you pay the full 15.3%, you won’t be able to get half of that back just because you weren’t required to pay it.  

How To Calculate Self-Employment Taxes With The Deferral

If you do decide to defer your payroll taxes, how do you calculate that? If you are only deferring the employer portion per the CARES Act, then you would take your income for the period in question and multiply it by 0.0765 to find 7.65%. That’s all you would pay. If you usually calculate it all together, then take what you would normally pay and subtract the 7.65%. If you are deferring the entire amount after September 1, then you could follow the same method but use 15.3% for your calculations.

Another option is to use this online tax withholding calculator. It is designed for pastors and the results break down the taxes due into federal income taxes, Medicare, Social Security, and state income taxes. Remember, the taxes you are allowed to defer are the Medicare and Social Security taxes, not the income taxes. To calculate your estimated quarterly payments, just use the withholding calculator and lower the amount you pay by the Medicare and Social Security tax numbers. 

Because this is all so new and not clearly defined, the IRS does not have a strict method that you have to use for your calculations. Their website says that “an individual may use any reasonable method” for their calculations. Basically, try your best to do it right and you should be fine. Don’t sweat the details. 

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Q & A: Reader Questions About 2019 Clergy Taxes

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Tax Deductible Expenses

Q: Are my vestments tax deductible? 

A: Since the passage of the 2017 Tax Cuts & Jobs Act, unreimbursed business expenses are no longer tax-deductible. That would include your vestments. The only way to avoid paying taxes on those expenses would be for your church to set up an accountable reimbursement plan according to IRS rules.

Correcting Tax Errors

Q: I have been a pastor since 2010. I use TaxAct to file my taxes and only became aware this year that I am supposed to be paying self-employment tax. For the first time this year, TaxAct asked if I was clergy (I don’t think we’d been asked that in the past) and then asked if I had ever filed Form 4361. For my pastoral role, I don’t believe I’ve ever paid self-employment tax though I have never filled out form 4361. Am I in error? Do you know what steps I need to take to correct my errors?

A: When you first become a pastor, you have about 2 years in which you can submit a Form 4361 to the IRS and get it approved to opt out of Social Security and Medicare taxes. It sounds like you didn’t do this, in which case all of your pastoral income is subject to those taxes. Churches are not allowed to withhold or pay payroll taxes for pastors, so you have to pay them as if self-employed, with Schedule SE. It sounds like TaxAct was not set up to understand clergy taxes until this year. I’m sorry about that.

You should look at your old tax returns to see if Schedule SE was filed. If not, you likely did not pay those taxes. Also, set up an account at ssa.gov so that you can review the earnings history that the Social Security Administration (SSA) has for you. It will show any earnings that you paid Social Security taxes on. If you haven’t paid them, then it will show 0 for all of those years since 2010. 

To go back and pay those taxes and get credit for that income with the SSA, you would need to file amended tax returns for all of those years and pay the taxes owed. There may be a statute of limitations where the IRS cannot go back and collect those, though if you do not pay them you won’t get credit for them with the SSA. I recommend that you consult a tax preparer who is familiar with clergy tax issues. Make sure they understand clergy issues because many tax preparers are just as clueless as TaxAct was and get pastors into trouble. At the end of this article, there is a list of tax preparers that my readers have recommended.

Documenting Pastoral Income

Q: What is the best way for a pastor of a small church to document his income from the church when he/she does not receive a w-2 or 1099?

A: There is no specified way that you have to document your income if you don’t receive a W-2 or 1099. Personally, I would use a spreadsheet and record the date it was received, who it was received from, the amount of income, and what it was received for. The goal is for you to have good enough records to file your tax returns accurately.

Tax Deductions For Pastors

Q: I pastor a very small (10-15) church and receive no salary. Are there any deductions I can take or special reductions? I receive Social Security and work part-time.

A: Volunteer work is not tax-deductible the way that cash donations are. The only deduction I can think of that you may be eligible for would be mileage for driving you do for your church. This article explains how to calculate and claim a tax deduction for volunteer mileage. 

Donations To Pastors

Q: Do pastors have to pay taxes on donations outside their ministerial income? The money is not reported on a W-2 and not due to services. It is just donations from people that want to give to the pastor.

A: If the donation would be given regardless of whether or not the person was a pastor, then they are not taxable. However, if the donation is due to the fact that the person is a pastor, then it would be considered taxable income, even if it is not tied to a specific service. The article in that link goes into more detail. This article describes a recent court case that provides more detail on what the IRS looks at to determine if a gift is taxable. 

Do you have a question? Feel free to ask!

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