Required giving

by harold
(tallahassee,florida)

If the pastor determines his pay and mandates that each member pay a specified amount,and has checks made out to him, is this correct and deductible? Birthday, anniversary, celebration gifts to pastor/wife are they deductible?

Comments for Required giving

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Pastor salary
by: Anonymous

also remember when the church decides on the pastor salary they must have "comparables"
Our Church council uses local middle school teacher salaries as a comparable as we are in a rural area and could find no other pastor salaries for comparison...
If your church feels the pastor should make more than you can pay you should have a policy in place to state "any donations designated for pastor will be used above his budgeted salary up to $______" and have a fund account set up to track donations given for that fund.
These donations would NOT be included in the year end giving statement of the donors and WOULD be included in the pastor taxable income box on their W-2/1099.

Prayers
Required giving??
by: Anonymous in NC

Sounds as though things might be too loosely organized. The church leadership committee should be determining the pastor's pay and the whole church budget, and there should be no mandates to anyone about what to pay. When individual church members determine how much they can afford to pay to support the church, then checks should be made out to the church to be deductible. Gifts to individuals are usually not tax deductible.

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