Endowments can be a huge blessing to the church or ministry that you love, but few people understand how it works. I’m not sure I do the best in explaining it in this video, but imagine if one of the biggest annual givers to your church is a dead person. That’s what an endowment can…
Tag: Tax Implications
The Win-Win of the Charitable Remainder Trust
I don’t want this to sound like a gimmick or some slick way to raise money from gullible elderly church members. That is not what a Charitable Remainder Trust is. The Charitable Remainder Trust can be an wonderful part of a person’s retirement/estate plan. What makes it so wonderful? Here’s a list: Guaranteed Income for…
Is it Commuting or Business Miles?
A lot of churches reimburse mileage for their pastor. Pastors can put on quite a few miles…especially if they serve multiple churches. Mileage can actually be a major part of the budget. One of the issues is knowing the difference between commuting miles and business miles because commuting is not reimbursable. I took my info…
Does the church need to do the Form 941?
If you’re a new church treasurer, and, after three months, you finally are feeling comfortable cutting paychecks for your pastor and lay employees. Then the IRS comes in demanding information on the Form 941. Does a church really have to fill out this form? That depends. The short answer is, if you just have a…
Paying a Lay Employee…manually
Like I said in a previous post, payroll is the most intimidating part of being a church treasurer. What makes it worse is that most churches just a handful of employees…maybe a part-time custodian and secretary. It just doesn’t make financial sense to shell out much for payroll software when your payroll is minimal. Without…
How do you pay your Pastor?
When I became a church treasurer, the scariest part of the job was payroll. I was a CPA. I worked as an auditor for the State of North Dakotas. I knew about taxes and payroll liabilities and all that fun stuff, but I’d never actually cut a payroll check before. To make matters worse, no…
How do I prepare my pastor’s W-2?
I’m not trying to dissuade you from having a tax professional prepare your W-2’s, but, if you are up to the challenge, here’s how to do it. This is mainly aimed at clergy in the Dakotas UMC, but I bet you could translate this into Lutheran or Presbyterian or Baptist or even Non-Denominational. Here’s the…