Clergy status changed, same church paid all year

[muttdrum]

for first 6 mos medicare and social security were withheld, than status with national church body changed and became regarded as clergy with housing allowance and no withholding last 6 mos.   turbo tax is flagging because w2 contains withholding but clergy status is checked.  Do I just leave it and ignore "check this entry"

[DianeW · Accepted solution]

Enter your W2 twice by splitting the income so that only the first six months are entered on one W2 with the medicare and social security tax withholding. Do not check this one as "Religious Employment".  If you aren't sure of the amount of income to include for this one in box 1, 3, and 5 you can use the formula below to figure it out.

• social security tax withheld divided by .062 = wages that had the taxes withheld (box 1, 3, 5, wages).
• medicare tax withheld divided by .0145 should create the same result as above.

Next enter a second W2 with only the wages in box 1 and the housing allowance in box 14.  This will allow you to handle all of the income and housing allowance correctly. Do check the box for "Religious Employment" for this W2.

[muttdrum]

to be sure I'm clear - I only recieved on w2 but I split it and enter it as two.  I do NOT need to get a corrected w2 from church, correct?

[DianeW]

You are correct.  This will resolve the issue and contain on the information from the one W2.

[Opus 17]

You don't need a corrected W-2 because the W-2 is correct given how your status changed.  However as you have seen, turbotax is confused by this situation.

I have never heard the idea before to enter the wages as if they are two different W-2s, one for clergy and one for the non-clergy wages.  This WILL result in the correct calculations, but I wonder if it will result in a letter from the IRS if your W-2s don't match their files.  Keep records of what you a doing just in case the IRS asks, so you can explain how and why you divided your W-2.

There is also a way to fix this issue by entering one W-2 exactly as shown and then overriding one of the turbotax calculations.  However, this can only be done in the CD or download version, and the override will prevent you from e-filing.