Interim Pastor - Statutory Employee?

by Kimberly
(TX)

My father is an interim pastor for his church and received a W-2 amounts in Box 1 "Wages" and Box 2 "FIT Withheld".

Box 13 was also checked for statutory employee. Being that my father was (and still is) an interim pastor, he did not receive and benefits, ie. retirement or health insurance.

If I prepare the return and show that the income was indeed statutory, then obviously the tax liability is much lower because he is able to deduct his insurance premiums of 6K on page 1 as self-employed.

However, everything that I have read indicates that he ministers should not be statutory employees.

I am just wondering if he could possibly meet the requirements for statutory since his is only an interim.

I am a CPA and have done my father's taxes since I got out of college over 30 years ago, but have never run into this issue. Thanks in advance for any guidance.

Kim