Hi, my husband has two lines of work, primary line of work (part-time) He is an adjunct professor and is the school recruiter at the seminary. He receives a 1099, so he pays taxes during tax time. For his second line of work, he is a Sr Pastor and all work associated as a licensed clergy. He gets a W2 from the church. Now that you have the background, here are my questions:
1. As a licensed pastor is he considered dual status? Employed and self-employed how do I accurately represent this when filing taxes. Submitted W2 and submit SE form?
2. Are pastor’s exempt from paying federal tax if wages are below a certain amount? And if so, what is that limit amount?
3. When entering the pastor’s W2, we noticed that no federal taxes were withheld, is this because pastors are exempt?
4. We also noticed no social security or medicad taxes were withheld, I assumed this was a mistake and has been corrected for 2025. However, under the uncommon income section, do I mark the clergy employment, since taxes were not taken out? In the past we marked none of these apply.
- I assume we will have to pay taxes on a quarterly bases for social security and medicad?
5. When entering expenses for the Pastor line of work, under self-employment. I entered the home information, and all the associated expenses. Then it asked to enter the income so the home credit could be determined, but it looks for 1099s or other income rec’d from cash/checks. None of these options apply, since we have a W2 (Pastor line of work). What do I do in this case, do I remove this line of work now that we are getting a W2? In 2023 we did not get any wages since we were a new church plant, wages started in 2024, thus the W2.
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1. The 1099 he receives for teaching and recruiting is not considered clergy self-employment. He is not a dual status if this is his only self-employment income.
2. Pastors specifically are not exempt from federal income tax.
3. Pastors are not exempt from federal income tax. The employer is required to withhold unless you indicated otherwise on the W4.
4. If you are a minister of a church, your earnings for the services you perform in your capacity as a minister are subject to SE tax, even if you perform these services as an employee of that church. In TurboTax, if you indicate Religious employment, you will be given options to make the self-employment tax payments. You will have to make quarterly estimated taxes for the self-employment taxes.
5. The parsonage should not be included under the self-employment since it is associated with the W2 income. After you enter the W2, if you enter the Religious employment, it will also ask about the parsonage and expenses to determine the exclusion.
This is the IRS resource Publication 517, Social Security and Other Information for Members of the Clergy and Religious Worke.... Please feel free to ask if you have additional questions.
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