Ordained Minister part of the year

I work for a church we have a pastor that was ordained part way through 2018 does he have to pay SE taxes of the full amount of his pay? Or pay SE only after he was ordained?

Comments for Ordained Minister part of the year

Click here to add your own comments

Mar 31, 2019

Meet the Criteria of Being a Minister
by: Vickey

Nonminister employees are paid under the FICA system and pay their taxes accordingly.

QUALIFYING ministers are under the SECA system and pay SE (Self-employed) taxes.

An employee is treated as a minister for payroll tax purposes if they meet the criteria for being a minister by having ministerial credentials. This can be an ordained, licensed or commissioned minister depending on the church.

I'm assuming your Pastor did not meet the criteria for being a minister for tax purposes until he was ordained.

Once he was credentialed, then he should have been treated as a minister from that time forth and his payroll at that point changed.

Hopefully you gave him 2 different W-2s or stopped matching and withholding FICA at the moment he became ordained....which meant his W-2 might have looked a little strange, but was correct anyway =)

Either way ...he only pays SE tax on the qualifying ministerial income.

Click here to add your own comments

Join in and write your own page! It's easy to do. How? Simply click here to return to Minister Employee.

If you want to DIY your payroll, I highly recommend you look at using Gusto! It is very user friendly and their support is awesome! Plus they know how to set up and maintain payrolls for churches and nonprofit organizations.

Note: I am a "partner" of Gusto, but as I have told you before ... I never recommend anything that we or our clients have not tried and love =)

Share this page:

What’s this?

Facebook

Enjoy this page? Please pay it forward. Here's how...

Would you prefer to share this page with others by linking to it?

Click on the HTML link code below.
Copy and paste it, adding a note of your own, into your blog, a Web page, forums, a blog comment, your Facebook account, or anywhere that someone would find this page valuable.