Skip to main content

Establishing Retirement Housing Plan for Pastor

By
Question:

 A church would like to provide housing for its minister after he retires. His retirement is still a few years off. What can the church do now to provide for its pastor after his retirement? The church would rather not use the parsonage to provide for this retirement housing.

 Answer:

Churches have a few options worth considering when discussing how best to provide for a retired minister:

(1) The church can establish a 403(b) plan for a minister before he retires and make contributions to it. Upon retirement (retired and no longer providing services to the church), the pastor can use this to provide for his own housing, if so designated by the church. Following advice provided in other blog postings on MinistryCPA, distributions from the 403(b) account to the pastor may enjoy tax-free status as a housing allowance.

403(b) Retirement Distribution as Housing Allowance

 As seen in the above link, the church can designate all or a part of the distributions as housing allowance. The part not classified as housing allowance is income.

(2) After the minister retires (and is no longer providing services to the church), the church can continue to provide him with housing. The Minister Audit Techniques Guide  says "The retired minister may exclude from his/her net earnings from self-employment (SE) the rental value of the parsonage or the parsonage allowance received after retirement. The entire amount of parsonage allowance received is excludable from net earnings from self employment, even if a portion of it is not excludable for income tax purposes. In addition, the retired minister may exclude from net earnings from self-employment any retirement benefits received from a church plan. Rev. Rul. 58-359, 1958-2 C.B. 422."

Thus the church could elect to have the pastor stay in the parsonage after his retirement. The housing would be non-taxable to the minister in this arrangement.

(3) A third option applies to those churches wishing to provide benefits to the pastor after retirement yet are planning on the minister no longer living in church parsonage. In this case, the church could continue to provide compensation after retirement (and is no longer providing services to the church), and simultaneously designating a portion or all of the compensation as housing allowance. Please see citation above under Option 2. This would not be subject to SE tax. For more information, please click on the following link.

Retirement Housing Allowance to Minister
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Rental of a Church Parsonage to a Non-Minister

By
Question: A church owns a parsonage, but the pastor does not use it as he owns his own home. The church rents the parsonage to a tenant other than a minister or employee of the church. Will the church be responsible for paying income tax on these monies as Unrelated Business Income (filing a Form 990-T) even if the money is used to carry on the business of the church? Answer: Whether the money is used for church purposes is irrelevant.  IRS Publication 598  states: "If an exempt organization regularly carries on a trade or business not substantially related to its exempt purpose, except that it provides funds to carry out that purpose, the organization is subject to tax on its income from that unrelated trade or business." Fortunately, in the case of rental income from real property, such income is "excluded in computing unrelated business taxable income" (Publication 598). Caution: see content below regarding debt-financed property.  However, a second concern not a
Post a Comment
Read more

Form 944 or 941 Filing for Churches

By Anonymous
Question:   A new church filed for an employer identification number (EIN) recently. It received notification from the IRS about the EIN, stating that the church must file Form 944 by the following January deadline. The church has no non-ministerial staff members. Since income tax withholding is elective by ministers and none of the pastors has elected to request non-mandatory withholding is the church required to file Form 944 annually? Also, a quarterly Form 941 (rather than an annual Form 944) is required of some employers. Which IRS form, if any, should be filed? Answer: According to IRS Section 1402(c) and 3121(c), ministers are not subject to mandatory income tax withholding. Unless one or more ministerial employees request non-mandatory withholding, church employers with only ministerial employees do not need to file Form 941 or Form 944.  The IRS  Ministers Audit Technique Guide  explains in further detail a minister's treatments for social security, Medicare tax, Fed
Post a Comment
Read more

Review: Form 1099 Payments to 501(c)(3) Organizations

By Anonymous
Question: A church rented space from another church last year. Should it request a completed Form W-9 and issue Form 1099-MISC? Answer: Payments from one 501(c)(3) organization to another 501(c)(3) organization are not subject to Form 1099-MISC reporting. The IRS Instructions for Form 1099-MISC state that "payments to a tax-exempt organization" are exempt from reporting a Form 1099-MISC.  The following are typical examples of payments of $600 or more by a church which are subject to reporting a Form 1099-MISC: Rent paid to an individual (non-corporation) Payments for services rendered by individuals who are not employees (e.g. janitorial service, facilities, snow removal, guest speakers) Support sent directly to missionaries
2 comments
Read more