I am a clergy but receive and enter wages via a w-2. How can I take my clergy business expenses against my income on the state of NJ return?

I can't answer for NJ but I suspect you are doing the federal incorrectly in the first place.

You are a common law employee.  Your unreimbursed expenses are deducted as an itemized deduction on schedule A subject to the 2% rule, and NOT on schedule C.  You should only have a schedule C if you have outside income (such as cash from weddings and funerals) and then you can only deduct expenses related to those specific jobs.

Your other expenses are only deducted on form 2106 and schedule A.

You also have to reduce your expenses by the Deason rule.

Separately, you can subtract your unreimbursed expenses from your income subject to SE tax, but this is not on Schedule C, it is done by making a manual entry on line 5c of the Schedule SE Adjustment Worksheet using Forms mode. (and also using the Deason rule adjustment).

Read this for more.  <a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="http://www.ecfa.org/PDF/2017-Ministers'-Taxes-Made-Easy.pdf">http://www.ecfa.org/PDF/2017-Ministers'-Taxes-Made-Easy.pdf</a>

You also are required to attach a written statement documenting your expenses, the Deason rule adjustment, and showing your final expense deductions. Since you can't attach this statement and e-file, you are supposed to print your return and file by mail.  (You may or may not get audited if you e-file without the required statement.)


If NJ forms Bus-1 and Bus-2 relate to self-employment and the Federal Schedule C, once you delete the schedule C and move your expenses to schedule A, your NJ return will be updated, assuming NJ allows deductions for W-2 employee work expenses on their version of itemized deductions.


Incidentally, the miscellaneous itemized deduction for work-related expenses was eliminated for 2018-2025 in the tax reform law. You may want to discuss with your church about having your expenses reimbursed using an accountable expense plan, and the reimbursements would be non-taxable.

and this all changes for tax year 2018:
<a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="https://www.churchlawandtax.com/blog/2018/march/churches-can-no-longer-itemize-deductions-business-expenses.html">https://www.churchlawandtax.com/blog/2018/march/churches-can-no-longer-itemize-deductions-business-expenses.html</a>

I already said that.  However, the expenses are still, as far as I know, allowed as an adjustment on schedule SE.

Federal deductions such as mortgage interest, employee business expenses, moving expenses, and IRA and Keogh Plan contributions are not allowed on the New Jersey tax return. <a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="https://www.state.nj.us/treasury/taxation/njit13.shtml">https://www.state.nj.us/treasury/taxation/njit13.shtml</a>

Please don't mark this solved until the customer returns.  If they are trying to report expenses on schedule C (leading to the NJ Bus-1 and Bus-2 forms) then they have already made an important mistake on their federal return that needs to be corrected first.

I think the final answer here is that your income should be reported on a W-2, not schedule C, and New Jersey does not allow unreimbursed work expenses for W-2 employees.

If you have further questions on applying the Deason rule to your federal return, start a new discussion topic.