Clergy Tax Reform

Imagine it will go away. Already ruled unconstitutional by a judge in Wisconsin. I've already given our finance committee a heads up, will be bridge we'll cross if we necessary.

 

Ironically, I just had my tax preparer finish my 2012 Federal Income Tax forms today. I found out that I'm going to owe the IRS close to $1,500!! :tear:

Although I can see some advantages of what the cited Forbes article suggests, I'm not sure that some of the BB members who qualify for the so-called "Clergy Exemption" would agree with what some of this article supports.

One instance that comes to mind is the housing allowance.

Some churches have very small memberships that probably could not afford to pay their pastor enough to cover a lot of expenses that may occur as a result of the normal expenses he may be faced with in the course of a year--not to mention the possibility of some catastrophic event(s) that might occur wherein a pastor might have to replace not only his house's entire structure but also most all of its contents as well.

Think of what happened along the Gulf Coast when Hurricane Katrina hit.

I've met a few pastors who literally lost almost everything they had, and some of them were pastors of very poor congregations whose members also lost a great deal of their "worldly" belongings.

These people seldom made enough money in the first place to pay their pastor's salary, assuming that he even had one in the first place (i.e., The pastor may have chosen to be a bi-vocational pastor instead of a full-time, salaried pastor.)

What little they may have eventually received from what governmental assistance programs that they may have been entitled to receive hardly covered their day-to-day expenses.

This is one area that, if the government is going to completely do away with this "clergy exemption," needs to be studied more carefully so that those whom Our Lord has called into the ministry will not wind up becoming so financially poor that some of them will eventually be forced to leave the very calling in Our Lord has called them.

This is just one of the many reasons why we here in BB Land need to lift up our pastors in prayer!

Personally, God has never called me into any kind of "pulpit ministry," but I do know of some pastors who had to give up what they (and their wives!) spent years (and a lot of their hard-earned money!) studying for the ministry.

Please, please, be much in prayer for those who shepherd your flock! This nation is headed towards a society that is increasingly becoming more godless every day, and especially towards those who seek to teach and preach the truths that are in God's Word.

Sorry....Didn't mean to get carried away from the OP's topic of taxes, but that's just how I believe about the future of our pastors and their families.
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On second thought, I'm NOT sorry for what I posted about our pastors and their families!!

 

Part of the argument against such a loophole for clergy, why should the government make it easier for a church to be able to afford a minister?

 

Maybe yall should research why the church is considered tax exempt automatically and why clergy are given this special tax status. If you do not understand the history then you will not be able to speak to it.

 

One does not need to know the complete history of 1920's tax code or the subsequent 1950's revision to comment on the rightness or wrongness of a parsonage and housing allowance exemption applied only to clergy.

Outside of the constitutionality question, which I suspect will end up in the Supreme Court, the general trend is away from such exemptions as governments look for more and more revenue.

This says nothing of the perceived abuses by clergy exempting their entire compensation, which was upheld in Warren v. United States by the Supreme Court, that some believe needs "correction".