I love this time of year! I like the cold weather and the smell of tax forms. Before the end of the month, I should have my taxes filed and my withholdings adjusted.
This is the time of year to start thinking about how much you are putting aside for taxes. You can set your withholdings by properly completing Form W-4, but the revised Form is tricky…especially for clergy.
There are people that make predictions but never look back to see how accurate they were (e.g., weathermen and economists). There are people that never make predictions but claim that they knew all along what was going to happen. I’m going to try to be in the rare third group that makes predictions and then acknowledges where I was right or wrong. Some of these predictions are fun and dumb. Others might be a little controversial. Enjoy!
It seems like every year, I have questions about who should get a 1099. Every year, I look up the answer and get that straight in my mind. Every year, I then forget the answer until next year. If you and your church get nervous about getting 1099’s to all the write people, this is for you.
Have you ever been your own worst enemy? For me, I’ll want to get in better shape, but then find any excuse to not exercise. I’ll want to catch up on a project, and then find myself watching stuff on YouTube instead. Can you relate? This is self-sabotage. I share my thoughts on why it happens and how to start overcoming this.
Farmers and Ranchers aren’t the only ones that can give through their business to support the work of the church. Our churches usually have many small business owners that would be overjoyed to use their business to further the work of the church.
Close to 1/3 of people have Traditional IRA’s (Individual Retirement Accounts). If you have people that are giving to your church who are older than 72, but NOT giving through their IRA, they are overpaying their taxes. Here’s how you can help them.
I’m actually not a fan of holding single stocks…unless you’re just planning on donating them. For people like me that instead invest in mutual funds, how can you enable them to give shares of their mutual fund to your church and why is this a good idea?